


Better than birds of a feather

by Asimi_Shadowborn



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: 5+1 Things, Ennoshita deserves some lovin from his favourite ace, Friends to Lovers, Hinted Kyouhaba, M/M, Tanaka has ADHD, Updates on Thursdays and Mondays, background kagehina - Freeform, i only write happy endings, just the right amount of miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:01:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25646236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asimi_Shadowborn/pseuds/Asimi_Shadowborn
Summary: 5 times Ennoshita tells Tanaka what he loves about him and the one time Tanaka returns the favorTanaka has ADHD in this AU, though the word is never specifically mentioned. I pulled a lot of examples from the way I personally experience having ADHD, so this work hits close to home. I'm really proud of this work and I hope it may give people an insight into some of the 'smaller' or more unseen traits of dealing with ADHD in daily life.I gift this work to everyone who feels a littletoo differentsometimes(Ps: to everyone who feels the need - please contact me on any of my socials if you want to discuss ADHD or surrounding topics, or when you just need someone to listen to you as you tell your story. You are always welcome!)(fanart/commissioned art gets linked in the notes of the corresponding chapters! :D 🧡)
Relationships: Ennoshita Chikara/Tanaka Ryuunosuke
Comments: 84
Kudos: 143
Collections: fanfics tbr for the podcast





	1. Say the word

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm excited to share my 4th fic with you all! ^^
> 
> The title is taken from [’'Sucker' by the Jonas Brothers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnAmeh0-E-U).
> 
> There was another song that heavily inspired me while writing this, but sadly enough I couldn't find a good clip _anywhere_ on youtube -.- So I guess I can only share the first one.
> 
> _**"I'm a sucker for you. You say the word and I'll go anywhere blindly."** _
> 
> Enjoy! ^^

Tanaka Ryuunosuke possesses one of the most jumbled brains Ennoshita has ever come across. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just… different. And it can be kind of difficult, if he’s being honest.

When Ennoshita met the current ace for the first time, he’d been annoyed by the way Tanaka’s thoughts seemed to bounce around like Ping-Pong balls; utterly uncontrolled and messy when compared to the way Chikara handles life himself. That annoyance had vanished over time – making place for a quiet amusement whenever the topic of his friend’s ranting changes from frogs to bananas without a clear indication again. Conversations with Tanaka never bore, even if you have to make sure to follow the swift way he jumps from subject to subject, enabling you to tell him what he was talking about when he inevitably loses his train of thought after a while.

Sadly enough, not everyone has the patience or understanding for conversations like these, even if Tanaka is really fun to listen to, most of the time. Where Ennoshita hears a bright mind, talking about things that interest him and following wherever his mind goes, other people go insane from the weird jumps in Ryuu’s storytelling and the unexpected way he’ll jump back to a topic he was talking about nearly half an hour ago.

Chikara knows that people get mad sometimes. He hears about it mostly from Yuu, sometimes from Kinoshita too. On really bad days, he doesn’t even need them telling him to notice. If Ryuu is _anything,_ he’s honest; the way his eyes turn dull and how he starts trying to pull his hair a clear indication that something’s wrong to the people who know how to read him.

Chikara knows that Ryuu accepts this, though. Accepts that some people are just plain idiots who get angry about stupid things, and who fail to realize how long their words will keep turning and echoing in the mind of a boy who thinks of _everything_ within two minutes and then bounces off to other subjects again. Tanaka has stated in the past that ‘it doesn’t bother him that much, these days’, but Ennoshita can’t take it to heart, even though he knows he should. It _pisses. him. off._ whenever someone bothers one of his friends, and he’s been feeling oddly protective of Tanaka as of late, even though he knows that his friend can handle himself just fine. It’s just that this particular type of assholery really rubs him the wrong way. It infuriates him whenever they open their mouth – like he can sense their idiocy even before the words leave their mouths. Idiots like the one currently mumbling about Ryuu while the ace is talking animatedly to Nishinoya.

They had all been listening to Kenzo’s story at first, but the ace got distracted fairly quickly and is currently trying to fill in Yuu on a new training program Ennoshita and he are trying to develop. According to Yuu’s small frown, the explanation isn’t going as smoothly as Ryuu would have liked.

Despite the level of enthusiasm those two seem to share at all times, even Nishinoya fails to follow the speed and randomness of Tanaka’s stories on occasion. Chikara has had to teach himself not to interrupt whenever something like that happens. He’s heard Tanaka complain one too many times about the annoyance of understanding a concept, but being unable to explain it in a clear way to others. He’s got to let him try, at the very least. They’ll get there in the end. And if not – it’s not like Ennoshita and Ukai won’t repeat the explanation when practice starts tomorrow.

Still, even Tanaka’s excited voice and large gesticulations aren’t enough to distract Ennoshita from Kenzo’s voice behind him. Nishinoya and Tanaka had been adamant that they take Kenzo & Fūjin with them to the arcade. Ennoshita fails to see how their so-called ‘awesomeness’ correlates to the tone Kenzo is currently using to talk about Ryuu.

“Does he ever just fucking _stop?_ ”

Fūjin laughs at the grumbling. “Don’t think so, no.”

Ennoshita frowns, but holds himself back by reminding himself that, a long time ago, maybe he’d have thought the same.

“He just keeps on yapping, Jesus Christ. Like anyone can understand him with the way he says _every shitty thing_ he comes up with. I know he’s not a bad guy and all, but damn, I-”

 _‘It’s not true.’_ Chikara hisses internally. His cheeks are slowly warming as he listens to the boys laughing behind him. He’s not even sure if they’re truly being mean, so commenting on it might be an overreaction. After all, he doesn’t know them that well yet. _‘Still, they’re wrong.’_ Chikara thinks stubbornly. _‘Tanaka’s habit of spouting all his thoughts often makes it clearer to others what he’s really thinking. When he tries to filter out the unnecessary parts, he leaves out the wrong things and gets even more confusing. Maybe they’re just stupid…’_

Fūjin’s laughter raises in volume as Kenzo goes on, causing Nishinoya and Ryuu to turn around, curious. Kenzo doesn’t notice this, kicking a small rock and continuing; “and if he isn’t jabbering, his fidgeting is out of control. I swear – my fucking cousin can sit still longer than him and she’s 2 years old!”

Ennoshita flinches as the relaxed smile drops off Tanaka’s face, making way for a horrible expression. The hurt in Ryuu’s eyes is nothing compared to the fire currently burning in Nishinoya’s gaze, though.

“Fidgety stuff is a nervous habit. Ryuu is just bored by your story, he‘s not a coward.” Yuu’s voice is as airy as ever, his calm smile belying the disgust-filled stare he’s currently directing at Kenzo. Ryuu’s right hand flies to his buzz cut as he stares unhappily at his supposed new friends from behind the libero’s back.

It’s almost physically painful to see him like this. Tanaka is never one to remain quiet, but he has a hard time whenever friends are involved. When it’s _him_ people have a problem with. Ennoshita moves to stand next to him, tapping Tanaka’s wrist subtly to get him to stop trying to pull on the short tufts of his hair. He turns back in time to see Kenzo glowering at Nishinoya with a face as red as the ugly sweater he’s wearing.

Chikara lifts an eyebrow as the boys remain silent – the tension slowly rising as other people inside the arcade keep laughing and shouting around them. He wonders if _he_ should have been the one who said something. Something about this whole thing doesn’t feel right… Aside from the obvious, of course.

“Well it’s true, isn’t it?” Kenzo eventually spits out. His gaze shoots to Tanaka – so fast it’s nearly unnoticeable, and for a second he looks almost apologetic, but the expression is gone the next time he blinks.

“I thought he was kinda alright at first, but he never knows when to _stop._ It’s a wonder he has friends at all, if he’s like this constantly.” His agitated gaze flits from Tanaka, to Ennoshita, to Yuu, who has balled his fists. “I’m starting to go insane when he’s around – he doesn’t let anyone else think or say anything – what kind of friend does _that?_ And don’t fucking look at me like that! You _know_ him, you _know_ I’m right!”

From his position next to Tanaka, Ennoshita is unable to see Nishinoya’s face, but he isn’t surprised when one of Kenzo’s friends steps back in alarm at the libero’s expression.

“You know-” Kenzo sighs. “I’m kinda impressed by the fact you could handle his bullshit for so long. It must’ve been hard. Nothing against you, Tanaka – but we’re off. You two can come with, if you want to, though.” He smiles in what he clearly thinks is an inviting way, but all it does is make Ennoshita want to throw him and his _squad_ onto the nearest train tracks.

He’s so angry that he’s faintly trembling, and he clenches his fists in a last-ditch effort to try and calm himself down. The level of verbal crap he just had to endure in under a minute time, is so enormous that he’s unable to say anything at all – struck dumb by the utter stupidity of Kenzo’s claims. His breathing is quick and shallow. _‘If that idiot tries to say one more word, I’ll-’_

Ennoshita jumps forward the second he sees Kenzo take a breath for what will no doubt be another offensive comment, but he doesn’t get far. The moment he steps forward, a hand clenches around his wrist, holding him back. Tanaka looks vaguely sick as he stares at his _‘friends’,_ his knuckles are white around Ennoshita’s wrist.

“Let’s go, Chika. Yuu.”

Ennoshita lets himself be carted off without looking back at the group behind him. If there’s one positive thing he can think of right now, it’s that Tanaka doesn’t seem to doubt for a second that his friends will come with him.

None of them speak as they leave the building. They hesitate for a second in the entryway before turning left, towards Nishinoya’s house. Chikara’s gaze shoots towards Yuu for a second, hopeful that the libero will say something meaningful – something uplifting that will still fit the situation, as it is one of his many strengths. But Nishinoya seems lost in thought, the fingers of his balled fists twitching now and then as if he’d rather have put them in Kenzo’s face instead of in his pockets.

His eyes flit to Tanaka next – a decision he regrets the second he makes it. Tanaka looks horrible. All the usual excitement and vibrancy has left his expression. He doesn’t really look sad – instead he looks empty; like a wax statue at a museum, maybe. There must be _something_ Ennoshita can say, right? Even anger would be better than this.

When a couple of minutes of frantic thinking don’t supply a clear solution, he decides to simply ask.

“Ryuu…?”

Tanaka gives the tiniest nod – a sign that he’s listening.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Or be distracted?” Ennoshita adds in an afterthought.

“Distraction.”

Ennoshita throws a helpless gaze at Noya again, but the libero is still clenching his jaw so hard that Chikara worries for his teeth. “Well… Did you know Wombats poop cubes?”

“What?”

Tanaka stops so abruptly that Ennoshita nearly collides into him, both him and Noya staring at Chikara. “Euh”, Ennoshita says intelligently, staring at them a little insecure.

“You thought the best way to cheer me up was by starting a conversation about animal feces?” Tanaka huffs, his light frown bending into a grin, mirrored on his right by Yuu. “Listen,” says Ennoshita, as his face floods with colour under their scrutiny, “it just was the first thing that came to mind. I’ve been babysitting my neighbour’s kid, and he likes to read books about-”

Tanaka’s answering laughter isn’t as loud as his usual guffaws, but it isn’t weak or fake either. “You got any more of those interesting facts ready, Chika?”

In the end, he’s happy he decided to talk about animal shit, Chikara thinks, as they continue walking – a large part of the tension now melted away from their group. Everyone knew that Nishinoya gets upset sometimes, intense as the libero is in all aspects of life, but wasn’t like Tanaka to be disheartened – so Ennoshita told him each and every thing that came to mind, until the only tears threatening to come out were those of laughter.

*

“Hey Chikara. Do you, euhm… You got some time? To talk?”

“Hey…” Ennoshita doesn’t even have it in him to feel ashamed about how breathy his voice gets in relief when he hears that Tanaka sounds more or less okay. He’d been wondering all evening whether he should call his friend or leave him be.

“-yeah, sure. I wasn’t doing anything, really”, Chikara says, pushing his math homework to a faraway corner of his bed. He puts his phone on speaker before quickly crawling to the centre of his mattress – crossing his legs before letting himself fall back into his pillows with an audible ‘thump’. He can finish the rest of his work later.

“What’s up?”

“Dunno… Just wanted to talk and stuff.”

“Ah…” Ennoshita squints up at his bedroom lights, searching for something interesting to say. It’s oddly terrifying how quickly a silence can become painful like this.

“You know-”, he starts, breaking under the awkward tension right at the same moment when Tanaka starts to speak again.

“Actually… I’m sorry, this was a dumb idea. I don’t know why I called, there’s nothing to say about… really- But I just wanted to…. I don’t know, this is stupid. I’m sorry for bothering, Chika, I’ll just-”

“No, no!” Chikara bolts upright. This whole thing is going even worse than he could have feared, and they haven’t even been talking for 5 minutes. “We can totally talk about it, if you want! I’m sorry I was being weird, I didn’t know if you wanted me to mention… it or not.”

“I…” The second of hesitation seems to stretch on forever.

“Do you want me to distract you again? Cause I can do that… if you want?”

“No, that’s okay, I think I’d like to talk about it.”

Ennoshita crinkles his nose at the hesitance still audible in Tanaka’s voice. Tanaka is a lot of things, but cautious usually isn’t one of them.

“So do you… want to vent, then? For me to just listen? Or would you like me to respond?”

“Maybe if you respond at the end, that’ll be best.”

“Okay, I’ll do that, then. Shoot! Tell me everything.”

A soft huff sounds on the other side of the phone line – Tanaka’s faint amusement palpable. Outside, Ennoshita can hear a bus drive past his house, the sound of wheels running over the asphalt mixing with the sound of Tanaka’s breathing as he waits for Ryuu to start talking.

*

Holding back his opinion, it turns out, is _way_ harder than he thought it would be. Tanaka has been talking for about 20 minutes by now (half of which was some sort of prologue he insisted was important to the story), and Ennoshita already had to hold back several curses; indignation rising at the way others (Tanaka included) dare to talk about his friend. Apparently Nishinoya was the one who let Kenzo meet up with them a couple of months ago, which explains the libero’s quiet anger after the confrontation that afternoon. Chikara wonders if Kenzo realizes he lost more than one friendship when he started demeaning Tanaka in front of his friends.

Tanaka, oblivious to Ennoshita’s internal struggles, continues his story. There seems to be so much to tell that Ennoshita is wondering how long some of these things have been bothering Ryuu, without him sharing his worries with his best friends. They _are_ friends, right? Maybe Ennoshita isn’t as close to Ryuu as he thought. Then again, even the best of friends aren’t entitled to each other’s every thought or worry. Distracted by this realization, he fails to keep back an angry huff when Ryuu finishes his sentence with “-so anyway, I guess I should’ve seen that one coming”.

Tanaka paused for a second, clearly surprised by Ennoshita’s sudden reaction. “Chikara? You wanna say something?”

Fortunately, Ennoshita is able to conceal most of his anger as he lets his thoughts flood out of him. Tanaka probably needs a calming voice of reason right now – someone who can easily explain why he _does_ deserve some great friends and shouldn’t ‘expect’ people to treat him the way those assholes did.

“You know that you’re not an anime character, right?! You’re more than a name or an image, you’re _human._ ” He takes a deep breath, the shocked silence on the other side of the line causing him to continue in a slightly softer tone; “you should never accept treatment like that. I mean – not that I think you wouldn’t stand up for yourself, I’ve known you too long for that – but this counts for people you consider friends too, Ryuu. You’re not required to listen to them or give them your attention, not when they don’t treat you fairly or ridicule you just for being yourself. Assholes like this don’t deserve to breathe in the same air as you, let alone deserving your friendship.”

“Right…” Tanaka says, taken aback by the outburst of his normally level-headed friend. “Yeah… Right… I guess I agree. With that. So… What was I saying? I don’t… Ah, yeah – so I know my sister talks a lot too, but she’s still not-”

Despite the short moment of relief where Ennoshita could share his thoughts, the rest of the conversation tests his patience just as much as before, if not more so. He has to bite his tongue several times to stop himself from interrupting Tanaka’s monologue. At one point, he has already taken in a deep breath – ready to angrily interrupt Tanaka’s retelling of a girl in his class who regularly makes fun of him for accidentally thinking out loud, when he remembers his promise to wait until the end of Tanaka’s story-compilation before giving his opinion. A promise which he has broken once already. He ends up letting out a restrained hum to show he’s still listening.

“I know it’s annoying to most people,” Tanaka goes on “-and so they think I’m annoying in general. Can’t really prove them wrong either, because even if I wanted to, I can’t change the way my brain works. I promise I tried! I really did, I just…” Chikara bites the inside of his cheek as he hears Ryuu’s voice break. “I really thought… I normally don’t have a lot of friends like this. Yuu is there, of course, and the team, but that’s not really the same. They don’t want to hang out besides practice much, and I don’t want to complain about it, but…” he trails off. “I believed them, you know? I thought that they liked me, but clearly I shouldn’t have, and-”

Ennoshita sees red. Constrained anger makes place for righteous recklessness as he decides that forcing the truth through Tanaka’s thick skull is exactly what he needs right now. He can’t handle listening to _any more_ of this. “ _I_ like you!” he basically bites out at the phone. “as do Noya, _and_ Hisashi, _and_ Kazuhito, and _everyone else_ on the team, for that matter. Well, except for Kei, maybe, but I’m not sure he’s capable of that type of connection to anyone who isn’t Tadashi…” Tanaka’s laugh makes him grin, extinguishing most of the anger that was consuming him one second ago. The indignation remains, though. “Anyway – I don’t mind the way you talk, nor do any of the others. Not the people who matter anyway. Fuck the rest.”

Tanaka remains quiet after his tirade – stunned into silence.

“And by the way-” Chikara starts again, hit by a sudden burst of inspiration, “your brain may be jumbled, but it isn’t all bad, right? I thought you were proud of being creative?”

“That’s not the same,” Tanaka says sullenly, “I could be creative without getting distracted all the time, too, or forgetting what I was talking about.”

“Maybe so,” Ennoshita admits, “but I sure can’t get my brain to spew random connections like that, and use them for art. I have seen your work, man – you should be more proud of it. Proud of the things you can do, and others cannot, instead of doubting yourself like this. You’d never hold your friends to standards like these, so why do you expect them from yourself? You should focus on the positive things it brings you, instead.”

“Maybe…”

Ennoshita shakes his head, dismissive of the doubt still lingering in Tanaka’s voice. He knows he won’t convince him of this in one night. Things like these take time.

“Now get your ass over here, our homework isn’t going to make itself, you know. And Imma kick your ass if you miss training because you have to catch up on your work again.”

Tanaka’s laugh as he goes to grab his jacket, Chikara decides, sounds infinitely better than his self-doubt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey hey! :D
> 
> I hope you liked the first chapter. This was written in a very different style than my other works, but it was a nice experience for sure!
> 
> There's two things I want to say about this chapter:
> 
> 1\. Tanaka pulls his own hair out when he's nervous - I chose this as the background reason why he's nearly bald, in my fic - so he won't be able to pull it out when stressed and maybe hurt himself in the process. I chose to include this based on my own experience of pulling out my own eyelashes and eyebrows whenever I'm really stressed. I don't realize that I'm doing it whenever that happens, so it's _really_ hard to stop this habit.
> 
> 2\. I constantly forget what I'm saying, often _when_ I'm still saying it. No matter how invested I am in a conversation, I often forget what I said only a minute before. Then on the other hand, I can remember small details from conversations ages ago (but that happens less frequently than me forgetting shit). It has become a joke where one of my best friends says that one of his main tasks is 'keeping a conversation catalogue', so when I inevitably ask what I was saying (once every couple of minutes), he can just repeat my earlier statement.  
> In a fic, this may seem cute, (or annoying for the person Tanaka is talking to) - but it can be extremely frustrating for the person with ADHD themselves as well. It's really hard when you're having a serious conversation with someone and you forget all the points you were trying to make.  
> If you ever have a conversation with someone like me - please know that we can't control this, and that your patience means a lot! :)
> 
> Thank you for reading! I wish you a great week! 💚


	2. Any road you take

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Everyone is insecure about _something,_ man. It’s not weird at all. And courage isn’t the absence of fear, just like confidence isn’t the absence of insecurity. It’s standing strong _despite_ the things that are trying to drag you down, and doing whatever you set out to do regardless.”_
> 
> _“But no one _is_ dragging me down?”_
> 
> _“That’s not true. _You_ are. You’re stopping yourself from being as… I don’t know-, as _daring_ as you usually are.”_
> 
> _“Wow,” Ryuu fans himself, blinking quickly at Ennoshita in an exaggerated manner, “that’s _so_ poetic of you, Chika.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for some background Kagehina (kinda) + hinted Kyouhaba :v (I just can't help it, my Kyouhaba agenda is too strong to resist)
> 
> _**“I'm a sucker for you, yeah. Any road you take, you know that you'll find me”** _

When Chikara finally finds him, Tanaka is standing just outside of the protection of the roof; his rigid form is only half visible through the curtains of rain. Ennoshita pants, pressing his palm over the stinging sensation in his side as he stares at the way Tanaka is looking up at the sky with his head thrown back; thick raindrops gliding past his forehead and into the short strands of his hair. He gives off the air of someone waiting for the rain to cleanse them from all their worries. Considering the way Ryuu is currently _drenched,_ that expectation doesn’t seem to have come to fruition just yet.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing?!”

Tanaka glances over, but doesn’t make any other indication that he heard Chikara yell.

“Come over here!”

The ace-to-be ignores him, the warm rain still thundering down around his motionless body. Chikara steps forward in agitation, only to quickly jump back as some ricocheting raindrops start dampening his shoes.

He curses softly to himself as he goes over his options. The others have gone home already. Not that it would be a particularly bright idea to expose Tanaka to them, in his current state. It’s not often that Ryuu gets like this, but when he _does,_ Chikara and Yuu are some of the only people allowed close. A last desperate look around confirms what he already knew to be true; the school is deserted, except for them.

Well. At least that means there is no one there to witness his stupidity.

With quick motions, Chikara rids himself of his backpack, raincoat and eventually his shoes and socks. It is so warm outside that taking off the raincoat is actually a relief at this point. After that, he leans forward, rocking up and down on the balls of his feet before abruptly shaking his head and stepping forward, into the rain. It doesn’t really help to overthink your actions when you’re planning on doing something dumb, after all.

It’s like stepping into a giant lukewarm shower.

Ennoshita is grateful for the smooth tiles the Karasuno staff had decided on using for these outside corridors. The smooth tiles feel almost pleasant against his skin, still warm from when the sun was heating them less than 2 hours ago.

“Hey.”

When Tanaka finally looks him in the eye, it’s clear that his thoughts are still at least 80% focused on the clouds shredding themselves up above their heads, but at least Chikara has more of his attention than before.

“I’m going to move you now.”

He doesn’t ask for permission, knowing he won’t get an answer anyway. Chikara lets out a small breath when Ryuu doesn’t protest. He lets Ennoshita wrap an arm around his shoulder and lets himself be guided back to the overhang where Chikara dropped his bag earlier. They’re lucky the weather is still nice out, Ennoshita thinks, as he watches Tanaka shake his head rapidly from side to side, like an overgrown bald dog.

He tosses his friend one of the extra towels he carries with him for practice. _‘Thank God for Hinata’s scatter-brained tendency to forget his towels for practice.’_ He takes out his own used towel for himself, scrunching his nose a little at the still damp fabric. _‘Well. It’s better than nothing.’_

After drying off, he sits down, leaning against the wall of the building and motioning for Tanaka to come sit next to him. His mother won’t expect him to cycle through this mess. Despite that thought, he still shoots her a quick message as he waits for Ryuu to start talking. One upside of them being friends is that the other boy doesn’t really hold back on sharing his thoughts; bad or otherwise. If you just give him time, the truth will come out eventually.

As expected, the silence hasn’t stretched past 7 minutes when Ryuu’s voice pipes up next to him. “D’you know that Kageyama came to me? To _me?!_ Wanted to talk about the fact that he was ‘scared about confessing’ and the like.” Judging by Ryuu’s tone of voice, you’d have thought they had been discussing this particular topic for a couple of hours at this point.

Ennoshita says nothing.

“I guess he thought I’d have… more… experience, maybe, or… Honestly, I don’t _know_ what he was thinking. It’s not that I didn’t- don’t- want to help him, but I just didn’t have anything to say…?” Tanaka’s fingers fidget, clearly itching to pull on his hair. Ennoshita tries to distract him instead.

“That’s… I mean… It’s a little surprising. But good, isn’t it? Maybe teaching him to do high fives and such made for a stronger bonding experience than expected, and that’s why he’s trusting you with this? ”

“I don’t know what to do about it,” Tanaka breathes, ignoring Ennoshita’s abysmal attempt at humour. “How can I tell him not to worry and to accept himself and his feelings if I haven’t even come out myself?” He glares at his wet shoes as if they just uttered a personal insult to his late great-grandmother. “I still told him those things, of course. And I didn’t lie, but…”

“Coming out isn’t everything. Maybe Kageyama doesn’t know? About whether you told your family or not? Or maybe he doesn’t care… You came out to the team, right? I guess that’s what might matter most to him. Volleyball is his personal holy grail, remember?”

Ryuu scoffs. “Yeah. Maybe I should’ve just lied… I dislike it, but it might have helped him more. It’s what he expected me to do, probably…”

Ennoshita has no time for the bullshit he knows will be flowing from his friend’s mouth next. “I don't want you to be anything but yourself. And honestly, I don’t think Kageyama would want that either. Are you sure you’re not just overthinking things?” Tanaka nods morosely.

“You’re known for being… unapologetically yourself. Under any and all circumstances, I might add. For as far as he knows, you’ve always been super comfortable who you are and who you like. _That’s_ the way you behave around the team, to put it mildly. Maybe that sort of stuff is more like the advice he was looking for?” Ryuu hums, still unconvinced.

“Still makes no sense, though. ‘Cause in the end, he mostly wanted me to help him confess, not to come out to his parents. I told him not to use ‘gragh’ or ‘gwaah!’, even though that’d probably come across more clearly than a usual love confession, when it’s coming from him.” Ennoshita bites his lip, his cheeks aching with the effort of holding back his laughter. “I don’t know what to do about that, man, I’ve never had to confess before.”

“You… Confess to Shimizu _literally_ every day? Maybe even more than that.”

“That’s not the _same,_ ” Tanaka says, waving his hand distractedly. “I know she’ll never accept. It’s more like… a sign. It’s me paying homage to how pretty she is. It’s not as serious as… y’know, when I’d tell other people? When I’d want… Yeah, so… Yeah. I think she knows, by the way – probably wouldn’t let me do it otherwise.”

“Ah, okay,” Chikara coughs awkwardly, some loose thoughts and hopeful words stuck in the back of his throat. “I guess.”

“He should’ve asked _you!_ ” Tanaka suddenly bellows, staring at Ennoshita like he’s never seen him clearly before. “You’d have been the better option for sure. You could actually help.”

“I- I don’t know,” Ennoshita stutters, surprised. “Why do you think-?”

“Didn’t you have something with that setter guy? You know-” Tanaka positions his hands against his face to re-enact a fringe. “The preppy one.”

“Ah. No, that wasn’t entirely… Well-” Tanaka doesn’t notice the way Chikara’s expression shutters closed.

In fact, it had never been Yahaba he was interested in in the first place. But it was the easy way out, at the time, to insinuate Yahaba… A convenient scapegoat, presented to him when Tanaka saw the two of them so close together, by accident. A great way out – saving him from having to confess that the only reason the silver-haired setter had pinned him against that wall, was to warn him to stay away from future aces. Especially those from other teams. Chikara’s ears still tend to glow red at the memory. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. That guy may have looked… The way he glared may have mirrored… Whatever – it wouldn’t have been the same. It’d have been stupid to try, with or without jealous setters around.

“ _You_ could at least have given him some pointers, or something. On what to expect!” Tanaka blabbers on, enthusiastically. His mood has turned around completely this past minute – distracted from his earlier sulking by the idea there was something he could do – some way to help that wouldn’t make him a worthless senpai.

“I don’t think that would’ve helped much,” Ennoshita interjects, desperate to stop Tanaka in his tracks before he tries to send a hopeful first-year setter his way. He licks his lips nervously, determined not to look at the boy next to him. “I’ve never had to confess to someone when… it counted. When I really cared.”

“Oh.” Tanaka’s enthusiasm leaves him in that one syllable, but luckily enough, he doesn’t turn back to his brooding self from before. A more neutral atmosphere descending on them amidst the short silence.

“And I wouldn’t have been a great help with coming out either.” Chikara forces out, unable to let himself linger on past mistakes any longer. _‘Oh God… Playing against them next year is going to be_ horrifying _._ _’_

“How did you do it, then?” Tanaka says, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Can’t believe I’ve never asked you before.”

“It’s alright,” Ennoshita smiles, “it’s not all that exciting. My aunt is gay. So everyone was long used to the idea, because of her and aunt Suki. I got lucky, I guess. My parents never really cared much about who I fell in love with, as long as they aren’t a complete shit and treat me well.”

It’s only at Tanaka’s hum that he decides to take his chance and return the question. “Why haven’t _you_ told them? Your family? I’ve never asked you that either.”

“I… actually, I don’t know. Few people asked before… I think most people just assume I’m scared of their reaction – of them being angry, but that’s not entirely true.”

“I don’t know,” Ennoshita says pensively, “you always seem so self-assured that maybe they just can’t imagine you acting any different around your family… But if you’re not afraid of them being angry, then what is holding you back?”

“The asshole parable.”

“The… the what?” Ennoshita asks, stunned. His confusion lasts for a mere second, sputtered laughter escaping him when Ryuu pulls his face into a sage expression, clearly getting ready to ‘share some wisdom’.

The future ace lets out a tiny sigh before he says: “It’s like this; ‘a religious woman, a gay man and a nonbinary person meet each other while walking their dogs. They laugh, talk, and become friends. It’s what happens when you’re not an asshole.”

He stares proudly at Ennoshita, who is still staring at him, stunned once again. “… Yes?” He tries. “So… How is that connected to-?”

“It’s why I was never all that worried about someone’s reaction.” Tanaka interrupts impatiently - like this should all have been perfectly clear from his story itself. “If they react like shit (even after a while, because sometimes you gotta let them think and about it – give them some time), then they’re assholes and I don’t need those in my life. The thing is… Family… You can’t really leave that behind. Or at least not that easily, even if that’s what would be best for you. You’d expect your family members to always be there for you, even if they don’t fully understand your choices or feelings, but that’s not how it goes. ‘S not how all families react. There’s… expectations. I guess if I’m scared of anything, it’s that.

Ennoshita frowns. “Scared of expectations?” It doesn’t sound like Ryuu at all.

“Scared of failing them.” He says, simply. “I know it’s dumb, maybe… It’s not something I can force. It’s just… the way it is. But that doesn’t stop me thinking that they might react… I don’t know… bad. Disappointed.”

“But you’re not thinking of Saeko, are you?” He knows it’s probably rude of him, but Chikara can’t keep the incredulity out of his voice. “You really think your _rebel-ass sister_ will judge you for loving guys instead of-? _After_ you saw her cheering for _weeks,_ about the wedding of her favourite figure skater to that Russian dude?”

“Not Saeko,” Tanaka confirms, his mumbling nearly inaudible over the sound of the rain still pelting against the overhang above them. “But dad… He’s a good guy. He tries really hard, I know that… But… After we lost mom, I think the pressure got a little too big for him, with all the time he had to spend at the restaurant alone. I don’t want him to think that he, I don’t know… ‘wasn’t a good enough male role model’, or something stupid like that. I still miss mom, but the fact that she’s gone has had _no_ fucking impact on whether I like dick or not.”

He grins guiltily as Ennoshita bursts out into laughter. “I’ve known for so long… For ages, really. At first I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want them to think I ‘just wanted attention’, but now… The comfort of them knowing might help somewhat, I think.”

That comment sobers up Chikara up _real_ quick.

“I hate that. Y’should say ‘seeking support’ instead of ‘seeking attention’, cause that’s what you’re really looking for. Please don’t let people tell you that wanting basic support and acceptance from your family is just ‘seeking attention’. No- I’m _serious!_ See how it changes their opinion, when you say this, if some idiot ever makes a comment like that.”

“And anyway,” he continues, lightly poking Ryuu in the ribs with his elbow when the other boy won’t look at him, “the ‘version of you’ people create in their mind is not _your_ responsibility. Not even if it’s your parents doing it.”

“Hmm… Maybe not.”

“You know… Whenever we’re talking about protecting others- like, backing some of our friends whenever someone’s in trouble; you’re always first in line. You’re one of the first to start shouting encouragements and assisting them in whatever they need. Why can’t you use that same drive to support yourself? You deserve it just as much as the others.”

“I know your dad is stressed,” Ennoshita continues, frowning, “but hiding yourself like this shouldn’t be a sacrifice you have to make – not if you _want_ to tell them. You’re allowed to stop being selfless once in a while, you know?”

“I’ll… think about it. Might need some time before I decide what to do.”

Ennoshita eyes him critically, ultimately deciding not to argue the matter any longer. It’s not like it’s his decision anyway.

“We should have talked about this before. I didn’t notice you were this nervous about it, I’m sorry.”

“Y’don’t have to be. It’s not like you’re a damn psychic or anything? I could have told you if I wanted to. I just didn’t want people to see me like that. It never felt like the right time to share that stuff anyway. There’s always something else going on, it wasn’t that important.”

“Just because you carry it well, doesn’t mean it isn’t heavy.”

Chikara laughs when Tanaka nods at him, clearly impressed. “Not my quote, I’m afraid. ‘S just a line I once read that stuck. Well, I still think it’s true, so…”

He lets himself smile as Ryuu moves to stare at the rain again. Even though the downpour has slowed, it shows no signs of stopping just yet. “I think I’ll tell my sister first. You’re right; I’m 99% sure she won’t mind. It’s just not in her nature to be judgmental like that. I’m still scared, though. I don’t understand why, really – I’ve always been determined enough to do whatever I believe in. This shouldn’t be different. I _know_ I’m right, dammit. I should be confident about this!”

“Everyone is insecure about _something,_ man. It’s not weird at all. And courage isn’t the absence of fear, just like confidence isn’t the absence of insecurity. It’s standing strong _despite_ the things that are trying to drag you down, and doing whatever you set out to do regardless.”

“But no one _is_ dragging me down?”

“That’s not true. _You_ are. You’re stopping yourself from being as… I don’t know-, as _daring_ as you usually are.”

“Wow,” Ryuu fans himself, blinking quickly at Ennoshita in an exaggerated manner, “that’s _so_ poetic of you, Chika.”

“Don’t laugh at me, you little shit! I’m trying to help here.” He’s trying to sound annoyed, but it’s hard not answering the grin that’s being beamed in his direction.

“I thought you disliked me being daring?”

“I dislike you and Noya shouting at a high enough volume to cause lasting hearing damage.” Ennoshita states dryly. “Wouldn’t exactly call that the same thing. It’s a great quality in itself, though.” The ‘it suits you’ goes unspoken.

“So you _do_ like it, then?” Tanaka needles, his sharp grin broadening even more.

For a second, Chikara considers bluffing; just making a joke out of it to back away from whatever this conversation is starting to turn into. It’s the tiniest amount or lingering doubt in Tanaka’s gaze that makes him pull through.

“So I do.”

There’s no verbal answer – only that smile, growing even wider than before. Ennoshita wonders vaguely how it’s possible that it’s still raining. The sun is right there. The thought makes him snap out of his reverie and squint sternly at Tanaka’s face, like his friend was to blame for the sappy thoughts. The other boy isn’t looking at him anymore, rifling through his backpack in order to fish out his phone when it keeps letting out a beeping noise. “I better not hear you pushing your own problems back like this. I’m not captain yet, but I _will_ kick your ass if you try to just handle everything on your own.” Unhappy with Tanaka’s small scoff, he adds: “-and I’ll ask Suga-san to help me in the meantime.”

This seems to have been the way to go, because Ryuu shivers and agrees at once. “Yes- yes, yes, I get it – I get it.” His face cringes as he moves to get up – reaching out to help Chikara up as well.

“I called nee-san right after practice – left her a voicemail to come get me before Kageyama cornered me. She’s at the gates now, let us drop you off?”

*

“It’s over there, nee-san.”

Ennoshita starts to move at Tanaka’s voice, picking up the bag at his feet, grateful to have survived another one of Saeko’s driving experiences. He hesitates when he feels someone stare at him and looks up at Ryuu in confusion. The other boy reaches out – simply squeezing Ennoshita’s wrist before letting go again. He doesn’t speak, but the grateful look in his eyes rings louder than words. Chikara shoots him a quick smile in return before securing his bag against his chest with his right arm, his left clutching the door handle.

The rain has gained in strength again, so he’s planning to make a run for it.

“Thank you for dropping me off, Tanaka-san.”

Saeko shakes her head in the front seat – the blonde’s boisterous laughter so alike her brother’s. “Don’t worry about it, Chikara-kun. It’s the least I can do to pay you back for helping _this_ idiot study!” The white stick of her lollypop clicks against her teeth at every couple of syllables.

He laughs, giving a last little wave before pushing the door open and jumping outside in one go, slamming it back shut behind him before racing to the front door. _‘At least all those laps at practice have had_ some _merit in the end,_ ’ he thinks, pushing his key into the lock and feeling it click, distracted by the echoes of Ryuu’s insulted shouts and Saeko’s laughter, still audible over the rain. The click of a closing front door gets drowned out by the revving sounds of an engine pulling back out onto the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some thoughts about this chapter :)
> 
> I wanted Tanaka to stand in the rain bc it's something I want to do often as well (not that that's possible, most of the time). It's supposed to make him feel calm, since for once, he can drown in something else than his own thoughts. (and also warm rain just feels nice, imo :p)  
> I have a very hard time falling asleep without my speaker playing rain/storm sounds next to my bed. It's incredibly calming and I thought the weather itself deserved a shoutout. #Thanksrain
> 
> Thank you SO MUCH to the people commenting on my work! ^^ It's the best way to let me know if my writing touched you somehow, and I couldn't be more grateful for everyone who shares their thoughts on this regard!
> 
> Thanks for reading the second chapter! I hope you'll have a great week! don't forget to drink enough water and wear your seatbelt! (at all times, but especially when you drive with Saeko) 💚


	3. The subliminal things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"In a flash of realization, he thinks of Hinata, and the way everyone has taken to comparing him to the sun. He won’t say they’re_ wrong, _per se, but he does feel like everyone keeps overlooking Ryuu during those conversations. No one who would see him like this, today, would be able to say that he’s anything short of radiant. Where Hinata is a blazing burst of light; almost too bright to look at, Tanaka is a steady but strong glow from within, its intensity warming everyone and anything in his vicinity. A shiny dome of positive energy, providing you with support when your own enthusiasm fades away, lending you warmth at the times where your inner strength seems to cool down."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey hey!  
>  My apologies for posting this chapter a day late! I was quite sick yesterday (ask [Possumel](https://twitter.com/Possumel) for testimony, lmao), and though I did feel a bit better in the evening, I decided it would be best just to post the chapter on Friday instead. 
> 
> Chapter 3 might be my personal favourite of this story, and Tanaka's behaviour in this chapter is one of the things that make it most clear to others that I have ADHD. :p I personally use 'jumping up and down in a corner until I've calmed down' as my coping mechanism, but a strong hug (that forces be to stand still) from my boyfriend or sisters also does a lot.
> 
> As a last note; a dear 'thank you' to my boyfriend for forming a personal oasis of calm.
> 
> Edit: OMG GUYS!!! I'll post the absolutely AMAZING commissioned fanart by Angie in my end notes - please check it out after reading; it's really wonderful! ^^
> 
> _**“I'm a sucker for all the subliminal things no one knows about you”** _

“Hisashi, have you seen Ryuu? I thought he wanted to eat with us again?”

“He’s doing laps.”

“Hmm?”

In answer, Kinoshita merely points at the nearest corner of the tennis field, only just visible through the window next to them. Ennoshita shuffles a little to the right for a better view. From his new position, he can recognize the guy who is running wide circles around the terrain. It’s a common lunch break habit when Ryuu gets too excited and can’t contain his energy any longer. The light rain doesn’t seem to disturb him in the slightest. Chikara can’t hold back the tiny groan that escapes him. ‘Rain. _Again?!_ What is with that guy?’

“I don’t think going out to get him is a great idea,” Narita says, smiling up at Ennoshita’s profile as he keeps on staring outside of the window.

“I didn’t say that I would,” Chikara automatically replies.

“Mhm,” his friend replies, trying not to grin too broadly at the defensive tone.

_‘Narita has always been kind like that.’_

Kinoshita, not so much.

“Bitch, _please?!_ You know it’s too late to lie to _us,_ right?” Kinoshita doesn’t seem perturbed by Ennoshita’s death glare at all. “Anyway,” he continues, carefully avoiding to acknowledge Chikara’s embarrassed glare, “Kazuhito is right. It won’t do any good to drag him back inside if he’s not done running yet. And he said he’s ‘having his energy spikes again’, so I doubt that’ll be anytime soon.”

“Can you even _imagine_ having so much energy that you need to run it off at random times? I’ll never understand what it’s like to have so much exuberance that you need to ‘force yourself to sit quietly’, I wish he would give some of that excess to me,” Narita laughs.

“He can keep it, as far as I care,” Hisashi says kind of testily. “Nothing against Ryuu, he’s awesome and all. But I’d never want to be cursed with a well of energy like the one he has. It’s useful during practice, of course, but everywhere else it gets annoying _way_ too quickly. I don’t think I could cope with all the complaints.”

_‘And even during practice we’ll complain when Tanaka gets too loud,’_ Chikara mentally adds. It often results in a scolding when Ryuu can’t calm himself down. He shoots one last glance to the running figure, now passing the gate for the 3rd time. _‘There has to be another way.’_

“By the way – 5 out of 7 questions on Ito–sensei’s test this morning were practical exercises on logarithms, so I’d check those again if I were you, Kinoshita” Chikara says, taking a seat next to Narita and taking out his bento and chopsticks.

“Dude, what the hell?! Why didn’t you lead with that instead?”

Ennoshita has finished eating and is busy explaining as much as he can remember from the different questions of the test when Tanaka plops down on the chair in front of him. He’s still panting slightly and almost _throws_ himself on his lunch in his haste to eat. For a second, Chikara fears he’ll just eat it plastic and all.

If the way the spiker’s bouncing legs continuously bump against their knees disturbs any of his friends, they don’t mention it.

*

Somewhere in the middle of their first year at Karasuno, Ennoshita had given up on watching new movies with Tanaka. The habit of their bi-weekly movie-nights had formed without either of them really noticing. A thing Ennoshita _did_ notice, however, is the fact that Tanaka just can’t seem to keep his mouth shut; no matter what it is they’re watching. He soon gave up on asking Ryuu not to talk, since his friend honestly didn’t seem to realize that he started talking at points he found exciting – making jokes and asking questions Ennoshita told him _multiple times_ he couldn’t answer, since neither of them had seen the film before.

They’ve held on to the tradition for over a year by now, and mostly watch older movies these days, or recent movies Chikara still managed to watch before the boy currently wiggling from side to side on the other end of the couch did. Looking back, it had been a great decision, since it made Ennoshita hold back from snapping at Tanaka whenever he started talking again and ruined the suspension.

Currently though, Chikara is having strong doubts whether Ryuu likes the movie at all, because his loudmouthed friend has been quiet for over 20 minutes. His conviction is strengthened by the consistent brushing of Tanaka’s shoulder against his, whenever the wing spiker switches from rocking forwards and back to rocking sideways instead. Ryuu notices the fact that he’s wiggling about every 5 minutes, forcing himself to sit still until he gets distracted again and falls right back into swaying.

It takes Chikara catching Tanaka when he starts clamping down on his knees, pushing them against the sofa in an effort to hold still, to decide that’s he's had had enough. Ryuu blinks up at him when Ennoshita hits the pause button, his slow swaying stopped by the abrupt silence.

“You sure you want to continue?”

“What?”

“It’s clear you aren’t all that interested. We don’t _have_ to watch it, you know? I don’t mind.”

Ryuu quickly shakes his head, hands clenching as he starts pressing down on his thighs again. “No, no! You talked a lot about this one, I want to see it!” Strong fingers flex, and Ennoshita can almost see the currents of energy vibrating under the wing spiker’s skin. He pouts a little as he stares at his friend, considering.

“Do you want to watch it the next time instead? You’ve been… moving a lot.”

It’s a sign of how well Tanaka knows him that he doesn’t apologize like he always used to at the start of their friendship. “Oh. Didn’t realize. I guess we’ve been sitting for a while now, maybe?” Grey eyes flit to the window before looking back at Ennoshita. Chikara forces himself to hold back his smile. He’ll never understand why most people find Ryuu as intimidating as they do, how they find him unpredictable – he’s so easy to read.

“Do you want to go out for a while? Let out some pent-up energy or something?”

“You… don’t live that far off from the park, right?”

“Euh… You mean the Kasukawa one?”

“Yeah, with the ducks!”

This time, Ennoshita fails to hold back his snort. "The ducks?"

"I like birds," Tanaka shrugs. "So are we going?"

*

It’s… unfairly cute – the way Tanaka seems so taken with nature. He appears to brighten and calm down at the same time. The constant small wiggles have stopped entirely. Ennoshita doubts he’s ever seen him this blissed-out before. Even when they won some past matches, it hadn’t been like this. He’d been happy then too, the both of them shouting until they were hoarse, but this…

He stares unashamedly at Ryuu, who doesn’t notice him anyway. In all honesty – it’s like he’s forgotten the other boy is here at all. He’s still standing upright – a direct reversal of the way Ennoshita’s sweaty form lays sprawled out on the grassy slope.

Ryuu’s heaving chest is the only visible proof of his and Chikara’s competition to sprint here as fast as possible. Apart from his fast breathing, his stance is utterly relaxed; eyelids closed as his smiling face is tilted backwards – taking in large gulps of fresh air as the golden sunlight filters through the leaves above, painting pretty patterns on his face. He’s radiating such a strong feeling of contentment that Chikara swears he can almost feel it.

It takes a while for Tanaka to move. And even when he does, he stays standing for a while longer – just staring at the nature surrounding them before strong arms stretch up to softly caress the rustling leaves that are dangling and dancing in the breeze, his smile broadening as a thin branch accidentally slaps him in the face.

He is rubbing his cheek as he squats down to come sit next to Chikara, who smiles at him languidly – tired from their earlier run and the warm sunlight he’s been bathing in for the past 20 minutes. It takes a lot of effort to pat the grass next to him in invitation. He ignores Tanaka’s snigger at the way his molten arms don’t seem to move in the quick effortless way they’re supposed to.

There’s something to say for relaxing in nature, or at least, there is when the weather is nice out. He feels like the main character out of one of his old timey movies – with the way the soft wind caresses his face and tousles his hair, cicadas buzzing in the background.

A couple of questions are slowly bubbling up inside his brain, but he waits patiently until Ryuunosuke lays stretched out next to him before letting out a little hum to catch his attention. Tanaka turns his face expectantly, curious as to whatever Ennoshita wants to share, the latter of whom forgets everything he was planning to say – distracted by the way the sunlight seems to turn his friend’s eyes into silvery pools of molten steel.

Eventually, the words that escape his lips don’t really form a question at all. “I didn’t know you responded so much, to… y’know”, he vaguely waves his hand, “all this.”

Ryuu lets out a soft laugh, patting the pocket of his shorts to fish out a pair of sunglasses and sadly hiding those pretty eyes from view. “It has always helped a lot, ever since I was small _._ It helps me calm down when I’m… When I get too excited. I don’t know why I respond that heavily to it, exactly, but I don’t really care as long as it works.”

“I really like nature,” he adds, a little redundantly.

Ryuu closes his eyes as he continues to talk – that ever-blissful expression still present in his features as he starts to weave his fingers in between the blades of grass, slowly pulling his hand up into the air until they slip from between his fingers, only to start the process anew straight after.

“I don’t only like nature when it’s sunny, like today, though. I actually like rain a lot, and thunderstorms. Oh, and I like walking on crunchy leaves. But it does kinda suck when it turns out that there was a puddle beneath them – I hate being forced to walk around with wet socks.” Ennoshita snorts as he starts to play with the grass blades too, happy to just listen to Tanaka talk. It’s a lot easier to stare fondly at someone when their eyes are closed. “I guess I love every season just as much as the others. I’ve never quite understood how people can choose one of them over the others; they’re just too different.”

Now here Chikara decides to speak up, uninterested in starting a discussion with Ryuu about ‘the merits of too hot summer storms versus catching frostbite in winter’.

He knows Tanaka used to have a lot of arguments with people when he got ‘too wild’, though a lot of their reactions changed when they met Saeko as well. “So… Why don’t you come here more often, then? When you get-… When you want to?”

Ryuu clicks his tongue but doesn’t mention Chikara’s slip up. “It’s not an addiction or something like that, you know? It’s not the _only_ thing that calms me down. People can work just as well.”

“Really?”

Tanaka’s eyelids twitch heavily at the blatant curiosity in Ennoshita’s voice, like he has to restrain himself not to open them, but he relaxes again when Chikara fails to ask further questions.

Chikara’s curious smirk turns to a smile as they lay there, basking in the heat and breathing in the smell of grass. In a flash of realization, he thinks of Hinata, and the way everyone has taken to comparing him to the sun. He won’t say they’re _wrong,_ per se, but he does feel like everyone keeps overlooking Ryuu during those conversations. No one who would see him like this, today, would be able to say that he’s anything short of radiant. Where Hinata is a blazing burst of light; almost too bright to look at, Tanaka is a steady but strong glow from within, its intensity warming everyone and anything in his vicinity. A shiny dome of positive energy, providing you with support when your own enthusiasm fades away, lending you warmth at the times where your inner strength seems to cool down.

He’s shaken from his reverie when Tanaka picks up his story again.

“Anyway, it’s not like I can just run off whenever things become ‘too much’. And people would look at me weird if I walk to the school gates every break-time, just to stare at the trees. I’d stand out even more. I mean, not that I really mind it most of the time, but I’d rather not have it _that way._ They think I’m weird enough already. Annoying.” His voice goes slightly stilted at that last bit, but Ennoshita has no clue what he’s talking about. _‘Who out of our classmates even cares about shit like that? And if they do care, doesn’t that just prove that they’re shitheads who are unworthy of your attention?’_

“Ah, yes – you’re _super_ weird. _So_ annoying,” he drawls, grinning, only to quickly scramble for words when he catches Tanaka’s grimace from the corner of his eye. In the end he decides to elbow Ryuu lightly in the side. He knows that what he’s going to say next might reveal a little _too_ much, but honesty is all he has to fight the insecurity hidden behind that lingering frown. Regardless of future awkwardness or other consequences, Ennoshita is ready to pay any price to burn those _stupid_ ideas from Ryuunosuke’s mind. He’s been a coward before, but not about something like this. Not when it counts the most.

He clears his throat before saying “You’re right when you say that your energy can be… a lot. But it’s refreshing at the same time, it really is. I don’t think anyone on the team dislikes it. Not even Tsukishima, even though he insists on acting like he does. They all pull energy from it, from the way you’re… you, on the court.”

“As for me… I think it’s…” He gulps, accidentally pulling out some of the grass blades he was trailing his fingers through in his sudden burst of nerves, “-endearing.”

“I honestly don’t mind, when you’re… I don’t know… Anything, really. When you break my pen because you keep fidgeting with it, or when you wiggle when we watch movies, or when you’re being dumb with Noya, or-” He interrupts himself, sternly staring up at some shaking leaves and saying: “-well unless you two are botching your homework of course, with that last one, but other than that… I don’t mind when you shout, or sing or-” _‘take your shirt off way too often’_ , his mind adds unhelpfully. “Well. You get what I mean.”

He glances to his right, heart beating fast in his chest, and praying that the casualness of his tone didn’t sound as false as he feared. Not that him hiding his ‘more sappy thoughts’ made his statements untrue, per se, but he’d rather not confess out of the blue like this. Maybe not ever, actually. It’s a thing he’s still debating on, and it’s not important at the moment, not when he should be concentrating on Tanaka’s weird feelings of guilt, just for him being himself.

Tanaka doesn’t reply, simply pulling down his sunglasses in an effort to add some dramatic swagger to his heavily doubtful stare. It’s more than enough to make a grown man doubt himself, let alone a 17 year old infatuated high school student.

“ _What?_ Why are you looking like that? I told you what I think, right? You just want compliments or what?”

His comment only results in Ryuu lifting both of his eyebrows, incredulous.

_“Stop!”_ Chikara hisses, awkwardness creeping warm and red from where it’s buried in his heart up to his neck and resting visibly in the tip of his nose and cheekbones. “Stop looking at me like that. I like it, okay? I’m almost never _actually_ annoyed when you start yelling, it’s mostly acting. Because I think it’s- It’s just not annoying, simple as that! Don’t act like you don’t know.”

Tanaka stares hard at Ennoshita, his expression utterly blank. He usually isn’t this hard to read, and it’s giving Chikara heart palpitations, so he wished he’d stop.

Right as the heart palpitations make way for an even stronger wave of anxiety, Ryuu opens his mouth and with a complete poker face says: “I _knew_ you’d learn to love my singing in the end, Chika!”

“You little-! _That’s_ what you got from all of this?!”

Tanaka crows out his victory at Ennoshita’s exaggerated annoyance, not daunted in the slightest by the way Ennoshita bumps their shoulders together _hard_ in a pitiful act of revenge. Chikara loses his composure a couple of seconds later; a grin breaking through his fake frown at the sound of Tanaka’s contagious peals of laughter.

And if they stay there for hours, just talking and laying like that; bodies touching from their shoulders all the way down to their pinkie fingers, enjoying the sun – well, that’s no one’s business but their own, isn’t it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An other day, an other chapter posted! ^^  
> I really hope you liked this one! :)
> 
> Edit: ALERT! ALERT! AMAZING FANART INCOMING: [Angie's wonderful art](https://twitter.com/AngieRoselli/status/1366581266099896324)
> 
> Some thoughts:  
> 1\. Okay, maybe 'theoretically' you shouldn't share answers of (math) tests with your friends before they take said test. But let's be honest; it's just a thing (most) teenagers do, so I decided to include it anyway.
> 
> 2\. Tanaka's wiggling during the movie is a direct copy of my own actions. I often sit wiggling while I'm working (which my coworkers find very funny) or I'm bouncing back and forth in some other way.  
> In highschool, I once looked up in the middle of a written test German, only to see my teacher have a full giggle fit in silence - staring straight at my face. (She's amazing, I wasn't offended at all, it seemed like she was mostly endeared). Apparently, I had been wiggling (while making my test) so enthusiastically that it almost looked like I was dancing on my chair. This could have been extremely embarrassing, seeing that I didn't realize I was doing it before I chose to look up at the teacher, but since she didn't seem to mind, I just kept going while finishing my work.  
> Like Tanaka clamping down on his thighs - I can control this if I /really/ want to, just like I can force myself not to talk during movies if I /really/ try. The thing is that I just don't fully realize that I'm doing it, which means that I would have to remain actively aware of what I'm doing the full length of the movie, which not only is mentally exhausting, but demands a LOT of my attention - and often makes it so that I can't fully enjoy the movie. Luckily I have amazing friends, and most of them understand (even though many of them choose not to sit next to me in the movie theatre :p).
> 
> I hope you all have a great weekend ahead of you!


	4. Break my rules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _‘_ Children can be cruel. _’ It’s a line he’s heard often before, mostly directed at primary school kids, who are unintentionally cruel in their curiosity or their lack of understanding for the hurt of others. But where most of those younger children have no real ill intentions, at 17, some of their peers have turned cruelty into an art form._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey! :D
> 
> F*ck the people who say that someone who's good at languages or is great at creating things is less intelligent than eg. someone who is good at physics.
> 
> Edit: for the people who /somehow/ missed it at the end of the last chapter; please go check out [this wonderful artwork by Angie from chapter 3](https://twitter.com/AngieRoselli/status/1366581266099896324)! ^^
> 
> **_“And you're making the typical me break my typical rules”_ **

It’s no secret that Tanaka has difficulties studying. The whole team knows, partly because of the way Ennoshita will shout at him and Yuu whenever they try to ditch their homework again.

Something even _fewer_ people know, is that Tanaka has difficulties studying beyond the regular issues that most students face; like laziness, lack of sleep or just the fact that the subject matter is plain boring. Chikara never really understood why Ryuu refused to tell people as much, but he’s been tutoring him ever since he overheard Tanaka talking about it with his sister. That said, even though the progress Tanaka makes isn’t always visible, Ennoshita does have to complement his work ethic.

Most of the time, that is.

“You paying attention? Ryuu?”

It takes a couple of seconds before Ryuu’s eyes regain focus. “Hmm?”

“You were dreaming again,” Ennoshita tuts, tapping his pencil on the page of homework Tanaka had planted his elbow on while he stared through the window.

Ryuu huffs, tearing his cheek from the palm it’d been leaning against with effort, as if the two had been stuck together with superglue. Chikara tries not to laugh at the visible palm print now painted in a dark pink on Tanaka’s skin.

“How d’you know? I thought you had your head completely buried in that history textbook of yours.”

“You stopped humming,” Ennoshita says, idly flipping a page of his textbook and pretending he believes this himself. He ignores the voice in the back of his mind which insists he only noticed because his mind forces him to glance at Ryuunosuke at least _once_ every 10 to 15 minutes.

For some reason, this comment seems to unsettle Ryuu. Ennoshita patiently waits for his friend to come out with whatever is bothering him, staring at his textbook all the while, reading the same sentence about the 19th century restoration of Japanese imperial power at least 17 times without taking in a single word.

Truth be told, he _could_ have noticed that Tanaka had stopped studying because of the silence. Ryuu is an auditory learner. Chikara has grown used to a constant stream of mumbling coming from his side whenever they try to study together. The same goes for when Tanaka tries to solve some math problems; mentioning every step out loud as he goes through the exercises seems to help him solve them faster and with fewer mistakes.

For the previous exams, Ennoshita had been able to convince Tanaka to try making songs to familiar children’s tunes – using his notes from class as lyrics. Sadly enough that plan hadn’t worked for every single course, but for at least half of his exams Ryuu’s test results had been noticeably higher than before. He’d seemed to like it, too. Though it had come as quite the surprise that Ryuu, despite initially feeling too embarrassed to sing in front of his friends, apparently has a great voice. He may be a little of an unconventional student, but as long as he takes enough breaks, and is allowed to sing songs or mumble as much as he needs, he seems to be doing alright. At the very least he has become a much better student than he used to be.

After finally finishing the first sentence, only to be stuck on the subsequent line and having to read it for over 5 times as well, Ennoshita starts to lose his patience. This waiting-game is doing shit for his usually flawless concentration.

“Just spit it out, will you?”

Tanaka chews on his bottom lip in thought. At least he isn’t pretending to be oblivious what Ennoshita is talking about, but staring at him like this is still incredibly distracting. So Ennoshita looks away again, hoping that his friend will answer soon so that he can go back to reading about the safer subject of the fall of the Shogunate.

He gives up after another 2 minutes. He grabs his pencil from the edge of the table and uses the blunt end to poke Tanaka in his cheek. “Hey?”

When Tanaka still doesn’t answer, bowing his head a little, Chikara pokes his cheek again. He knows he’s behaving like a toddler, but he doesn’t really care. It feels kind of nice, being the annoying one for once.

“Hey!” Poke.

“Hey!” Poke.

“Hey!” Poke. Poke. Maybe he’s been studying for too long? The longer he goes on, the stronger the urge to giggle starts to well up inside of him.

Ennoshita lifts his pencil again, ready for an epic “Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey-” when Tanaka suddenly asks, his voice soft: “do you think I’m stupid, Chika?”

“Wha-?”

The question comes so out of the blue that Ennoshita drops his pencil, ignoring it completely as it rolls from the carpet and comes to a stop underneath the dresser behind them. Tanaka bows his head even lower as he waits for an answer, refusing to look up at an increasingly more confused Chikara.

“Hey,” Chikara says again, weakly, poking Tanaka in the cheek with his finger instead of his lost pencil. He repeats himself in a more urgent tone when Tanaka turns his head away even more, refusing to look at him.

The ace-to-be startles when fingertips curl around his jaw, slowly turning his face so Ennoshita can finally look him in the eye again. Chikara drops his hand immediately after, fingers tingling.

“Who told you that bullshit?”

Tanaka’s eyes drift away from Chikara’s face to stare outside of the window again. Aside from the twitch at the corner of his mouth, it would be hard to notice how much this question is bothering him. But Ennoshita sees. He knows.

Not all of them are friends with their classmates. Tanaka doesn’t talk about it often, but it’s become clear throughout their 2nd year that the kids he is sharing classes with don’t really mesh well. Or at least not with him.

“Don’t take criticism from people you wouldn’t take advice from,” Chikara says sternly. He’s learned from experience that Tanaka reacts better to speeches that fire him up instead of quiet compassion when he’s feeling sad. The compassion will be welcomed later.

“It wasn’t that bad,” he says, grey eyes reflecting the light from outside – casting the eerie illusion that he has no pupils. “They were just- They heard me mumble… talk during the test and- I mean… I couldn’t just let them think that I was cheating, or something?” He says, his voice suddenly a touch more desperate as he turns back to face Ennoshita again. “And I guess… Hikari thought it was funny, that I can’t really focus unless I’m talking – so he told the others. They thought it was funny too… And they said-…” He trails off again.

Ice slides down into Chikara’s stomach. If it had been Nishinoya, or one of the others of the team, then it could’ve been funny. Maybe.

_‘Children can be cruel.’_ It’s a line he’s heard often before, mostly directed at primary school kids, who are unintentionally cruel in their curiosity or their lack of understanding for the hurt of others. But where most of those younger children have no real ill intentions, at 17, some of their peers have turned cruelty into an art form.

“You never lose focus when we’re preparing stuff for practice,” Chikara says stupidly. He wants to facepalm the moment the words leave his mouth, but the truth is; despite immediately realizing the utter idiocy of Tanaka’s classmates’ claims, he’s at a loss for what to say. And all in all, it might not have been the worst example. They’re at the end of their second year now, and coach Ukai had told him and Tanaka to start preparing things together with Suga and Daichi, in an effort to make the switch to their new roles as captain and vice-captain as smooth as possible.

Tanaka never really lost focus whenever they were discussing practice plans, no matter how boring the details could get sometimes. And the more freedom Ukai and the others allowed him, the more Tanaka began to shine in his new role.

“I can focus!” Tanaka suddenly bursts out, almost giving Chikara a whiplash when he reels back too fast. “I sometimes focus on the same thing for hours on end! I just… can’t really choose what subject I’m focusing on, most of the time. And then… sometimes I’ll realize that I'm focussing on something stupid, but I can't _stop?!_ And I _know_ at that point that every second I spend focussing on, y'know, whatever, is another second that is wasted, and then that goes on for _hours_ and I'm _still_ doing it, and I just can't _stop!_ And then I start to panic more and more, but my eyes keep staring at the pretty bird outside and-”

“I get it!” Chikara presses. Then, softer: “I get it, Ryuu.”

The sigh Tanaka breathes out at his comment seems to take all his previous desperate agitation with it, because when he starts talking again, he sounds so calm it’s almost as unsettling as the earlier outburst. “Dad says that I’m _‘more than smart enough for this’_ and that _‘he knows I’m intelligent enough to succeed in all my classes’_.” He chuckles bitterly. “But that just makes it sound like I just don't _want_ to work whenever I fail a test. Because _‘I’m smart enough to get through, so if I fail it’s because I didn’t care enough’_. I know he probably means well, but I don’t really think he understands. He remembers Saeko’s and my diagnosis when it fits him – mentions it more than enough whenever we get rowdy or shout too much, but it’s like he forgets about it every time I show him my grades, even though he knows I try hard. _Should_ _know_ I try hard.”

He takes in a deep breath, and Ennoshita gives a tiny nod, giving him space to go on with his rant without distracting him by interrupting. “If I do badly, then everyone is disappointed, but if I’m lucky and do well, then it’s nothing special, because _‘I’m smart enough to get those results anyway’_ and it’s what they expect. And most of the time it’s still that first option anyway.

Tanaka slumps down, legs stretching underneath the table while he rests his head back against the wall. Chikara’s mind is alternating heavily between squeezing his shoulder in understanding and hitting his friend on the back _hard_ – slapping some sense back into him.

“Why does nobody see that I’m trying? _Really_ trying? Just because I study in a weird way? Does that only apply to quiet people who only spend their time reading or… I don’t know – doing smart-people stuff?”

“-or salty, condescending people,” he adds as an afterthought.

Ennoshita raises an eyebrow. “ _Nobody_ sees? What am I then? A potato?”

Tanaka lets his head slide down the wall until it’s resting against his shoulder as he smiles tiredly up at Chikara.

“We know you put in effort, Ryuu. I can’t be the only one. If you feel like that, then I think you should just talk to your dad. Explain how you feel about it, and such. Even if it doesn’t change his mind, I think you’ll still feel better because you got to share your view on things. It doesn’t matter that you study in a… different way, that’s not the only way to success. You shouldn’t try to change into something you're not – just find a way that makes it work for you and keep going. You’ve gotten a lot better at taking notes as well as remembering the summaries we made for your tests. There’s no reason to sound as negative as you do; you can be proud of your progress!”

He waits until Tanaka nods before adding: “And for the record; I truly know you try hard, even if it doesn’t work out well for you, all the time. I… like how much effort you put in, even when you feel out of your depth. That goes for more than just school work, obviously, but… yeah. It shows that you… won’t just quit. That you’re determined, I think.”

“Hell yeah, I am!”

“You are.”

“I’ll become the most determined guy of our year! No–, of the whole school!”

“Well, you can start this project of yours by using that determination to finish your homework, then.”

“Ennoshita, you traitor!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember kids; EQ isn't less important than IQ in this world, and it should be valued the same. (Also - even if someone _is_ 'less intelligent', that doesn't mean that they are worth less.
> 
> Personal notes about this chapter:  
> I don't feel the need to constantly talk while I'm studying, but if I'm having trouble with certain tasks, it does help me a lot to work through them while voicing my thoughts out loud. This made exams really hard for me, because teachers will easily accuse you of cheating while that wasn't my intention at all. Even during my exams at college I still mouthed my ideas while I was considering my answers, but at that poined I had trained myself not to speak out loud, not even in whispers.  
> I do switch to talking out loud while I'm thinking sometimes, and won't notice it myself. You can imagine that I have a very short brain-to-mouth filter :p This may 'stand out' less because it's important to me to speak the truth as much as possible, so it isn't really a problem seeing that the people I'm talking to will always get the same info
> 
> Please drink enough water and don't forget to wear your mask when you're going to the store! I'm very excited to see what you guys think about the story so far ^^


	5. True

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _'“You’ll all do 10 laps of diving drills tomorrow before practice, followed by two suicide runs.”_
> 
> _It’s a sign that they get the severity of the situation when not a single one of the boys in front of him protests._
> 
> _Ennoshita turns to stare at Tanaka._
> 
> _Kind Tanaka; who is loyal to a fault and too passionate for his own good._
> 
> _“And_ you. _Come with me.”'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love thinking of Tanaka as the big bro of the team. My younger siblings are of immense importance to me, as are most of my friends - and I pulled a lot of energy from that affection while writing this chapter. I’m not entirely sure if the events of this chapter come across that way, but that protective love and loyalty is what fuels Tanaka. :)
> 
> Trigger warning: in this chapter there are mentions of sexual harassment, but nothing happens.
> 
> **_“It's true, I'm a sucker for you. I'm a sucker for you”_ **

They enter their third year as a strong duo, well-known by the other teams. They are called ‘the scary ace and his sleepy-faced captain’. Ryuu says they don’t know shit about who’s the scary one out of the two of them.

In the few short months he’s been captain thus far, Ennoshita has gained a new understanding for Daichi’s prevalent frown. Since their team is made up of a bunch of rascals, he’s had to be strict at nearly every instance to make sure they didn’t run amok. They _do_ love to test his patience. Except for Yamaguchi, maybe, who’s the only one who doesn’t aggravate Chikara on a regular basis. However, in all those months of his teammates behaving like utter _buffoons,_ not a single time have they caused him to become _even_ _close_ to as angry as he currently is.

Ennoshita’s face is the sickly white of curdled milk as he stares at his second-year players with pursed lips.

“Explain. Now.”

He’s so angry that he can’t say anything more than those two words to keep himself from cursing out all of them. _‘Are they insane?! If the fact that the vice-principal might kick them all off the team wasn’t bad enough already, they currently face the very real threat of being charged with assault.’_

For a second, there’s silence. Then all 4 of them explode at the same time. Chikara blinks as they all cackle and try to shout over one another.

“They were shouting these horrible things, captain! We just wanted to help, but when I yelled at them they laughed at us, so I went to push him like ‘ _gwah!_ ’ and-”

“You should’ve heard them, Ennoshita-san! They’re too pathetic to breathe, threatening a girl 10 years younger! I’d gladly have smashed their-”

“Well, Hinata-, that _idiot_ shouted back at them to not say such things, and then they came forward and started threatening him too! And I couldn’t _not_ help him? We can’t play volleyball if they really did break his arms like they said! And anyway, he’s an idiot, so he needed all the help he could-”

“It wasn’t our fault, captain! They started everything, and when Tsukki jumped in, I thought I should-”

It’s one large cacophony of angry voices – 4 red faces shouting at once, an ashen-faced Tanaka standing guard behind them. Ennoshita is right about to point at one of them, letting them explain things one by one in an effort to make some sense out of all this, when-

“They were targeting Yachi.”

Miraculously, all four of the second-years shut up at Tanaka’s low growl. There’s a nauseous twist in Chikara’s stomach. He hasn’t really looked at Tanaka yet, even though he knows the ace was present at whatever showdown happened that afternoon. He can’t allow himself to think about the possible consequences… about having to drop Tanaka as his vice-… Well, that’s a matter for later.

“Ukai found us, later, when we-, when we’d made them stop.” Ennoshita’s stomach clenches even tighter as he fishes his cellphone out of his pocket with shaking hands, looking up coach Ukai’s number and calling him right away. He walks a little farther down the hall, still keeping an eye on the others – but they all wait silently until he has finished the conversation with their coach and returns.

Ennoshita has to work very hard to keep a straight face as he regards the stubborn people in front of him. Yamaguchi is sporting a spectacular black eye and Hinata has a split lip. _‘’Being captain is a dream job’,_ my ass _. He’s never felt as much out of his depth as in this particular moment. Voicing his opinion sure was a lot easier when his words didn’t carry as much weight as they do now.’_

“Ukai filled me in on what happened.”

None of them react as they stare at Chikara’s face, frozen.

“You might want to know that one of the men you attacked needed to get first aid, the other one went to the hospital for minor cuts and bruises, though they still need to check him for possible bruised ribs.”

None of them look terribly saddened to hear this.

Chikara pinches the bridge of his nose, his mind still racing with different reactions, trying to decide which is the best one.

“You don’t need to tell me _why_ you did it. I _know_ what happened now. But what I _do_ want to know, is why you all behaved like headless chickens instead of using your brains to get out of the situation?”

This finally gets a reaction out of them. Hinata and Kageyama gasp like fish who’ve just been thrown on land, while Tsukishima looks like he just bit into a lemon. Yamaguchi pales, the only white face next to his confused teammates.

“Don’t you guys have even a _shred_ of self-control?”

“They were goading us,” Tsukishima snarls, not backing down despite the way Ennoshita’s sharp glare is making him blush.

“We couldn’t let them hurt Yachi!” Kageyama barks. “They said they would take her and teach-… They said they were going to-…” his voice breaks lightly as he falters to get out the end of the sentence. “They were-”

“I know, Kageyama.”

Chikara puts on his best ‘disappointed captain’ face as he feels most of the anger flow from his body. In all honesty, he doesn’t know if he would’ve held back either, but-

“It’s… brave that you guys tried to defend her, I’m not saying anything negative about that, but the way you went about it was just plain stupid. Why didn’t you just alert authorities or other adults around you, the second those assholes started harassing her? Sexual intimidation is an offence punishable by law, let alone if they really were trying to-” he coughs to regain his composure.

“If you try to punch every human in the face who’d _deserve_ it, you’re going to make your life a _lot_ more difficult than it needs to be. Please don’t lower yourself to their level. I understand that you would want to protect yourselves as well as others when you needed to, but there’s _5 of you?!_ 5, apart from Yachi! Do you really think they would have started a fight on their own? With just the 3 of them?”

“Well, Tanaka-san wasn’t there until they were ganging up on the freak duo,” Tsukishima murmurs, but Chikara ignores him.

“You should’ve just ignored them, comforted Yachi and taken her home.”

“Besides-” he says, as he sees Hinata furiously open his mouth, “before you all tried to bash their faces in, they had not a _single_ argument to support their case. And Yachi had 4 eyewitnesses. The fact that you fought them until one of them had to go to the hospital distracts from the _real issue_ here. We should be talking about _Yachi_ and other girls’ safety, not the fact that you caused them to lose several teeth. Did any of you even pause to think how all of this affected Yachi? Ukai told me she was frightened out of her mind when you guys started throwing fists.”

Ennoshita pauses, breathing heavily after his spirited lecture. His teammates shuffle their feet, uncomfortable about the idea of stressing out Yachi even more than she already had been. Regardless of what he just said, he can’t honestly say that he doesn’t understand what they were feeling or why they acted the way they did, even if he can’t tell them that he approves. They really _are_ lucky they weren’t kicked off of the team – not that Ukai would just let the vice-principal have his way without defending the team, but still.

“Takeda and Ukai have escorted Yachi home – they’re now explaining everything to her mother, and will go with Yachi if she wants to report these pieces of human-… Well.”

He sighs, feeling like he aged 10 years in the last hour alone. “I get that you were all angry – I really do, but that’s not enough to excuse all this. I’m not saying that you should never let out any of your anger – I agree that you have to go through your feelings in order to get over them, but you should always do so in a safe environment. Please don’t just start fighting whenever you’re angry or are having a hard time.” He gives another meaningful look at Hinata and Kageyama, who, to be fair, haven’t fought for many months at this point, but one can never be too sure.

“You’ll all do 10 laps of diving drills tomorrow before practice, followed by two suicide runs.”

It’s a sign that they get the severity of the situation when not a single one of the boys in front of him protests.

Ennoshita turns to stare at Tanaka.

Kind Tanaka; who is loyal to a fault and too passionate for his own good.

“And _you._ Come with me.”

*

The walk to the storage room at the end of the gymnasium is quiet. Neither of them says anything when Chikara unlocks the door so he can get out the box he needs. It’s only when he’s pulled the first-aid kit from its plank that Tanaka speaks.

“I don’t need-”

“Oh shut the fuck up, Ryuu.”

Miraculously, he does indeed shut up – moving to the bench Ennoshita points at, so they’ll both have a place to sit. They don’t acknowledge the tension in the air as Chikara starts to search the box for useful content; fishing out disinfectant spray and some Band-Aids.

Tanaka hisses – sucking in some air when Chikara sprays the disinfectant on one of the deeper cuts around his knuckles. He holds his breath for a second before letting it out with a huff and says: “I’m not sorry.”

“I know,” Ennoshita says as he takes Tanaka’s left hand to clean the small wounds that now mar the calloused skin. It appears that he cut his own palm with his nails when he punched one of the assailants in the face.

“I’m not sorry that I didn’t support you out there. You know I couldn’t say something like that with our kouhais present. But even if I could have, I still think you were wrong.”

“I know,” Tanaka echoes, wincing a little as Chikara starts wrapping one of his hands with a thin bandage. “And I know I probably should have reacted differently, Chika – I do.”

“I _do,_ ” he repeats a tad more forceful as he sees Ennoshita’s doubtful stare. “I should’ve just gotten the other ones to back off from those scumbags, but you should’ve heard what they were shouting, Chikara, I swear…” He trails off, eyes staring unfocused into the distance as Ennoshita reaches for the second-to-last bandage.

When he speaks again, Tanaka’s voice is so soft that the only reason Chikara hears him is because their faces are only inches apart as he tries to patch up his friend’s hands. “I hated them.”

Chikara hums curiously, looking up when Tanaka doesn’t reply and starts waving a hand in front of his face. “Ryuu?”

The far-off look disappears, and Ryuunosuke chuckles awkwardly. He looks like he’s about to wave his comment away – but one look from Chikara gets him to continue talking. “I just can’t handle it, you know,” he says decidedly. “It’s okay when they do it on the court – saying some shit to rile others up. You know that they don’t mean it, it’s just part of the game at that point. But these guys… I wanted-”

He pauses again, seemingly unaware that Chikara has paused in administering the last Band-Aid as he waits for Ryuu to continue. “I hate it. They’re- bullies. They’re bullies, that’s what they are. Fucking _scum._ ” He scowls. “It was different. The last time I got mad about something like this was when Tsukishima was being a bitch to Hinata, and that’s _ages_ ago.”

“And that’s also just within his nature,” Chikara says good-naturedly, trying to peel away the little piece of plastic covering the Band-Aid. Tanaka grins, his anger forgotten for a second as he looks down at their clasped hands. “I wasn’t sure how much of it was supposed to hurt. _Hurt-_ hurt, I mean. It’s not okay if it’s truly meant to sting.”

He swallows, waiting until Ennoshita finally smooths the bandage onto his skin when he says “do you think… I’m damaged or something? Because of… Things that happened before? I know I shout ‘n stuff, during matches, but it’s not the same. I thought I was going to lose my mind when they were shouting shit about Yachi. I’ve never reacted that way before… It was… scary. What I felt. I thought-”

“You’re done now,” Ennoshita replies, in lieu of answering the real question. He can feel Tanaka’s eyes on the back of his neck as he starts collecting the tiny pieces of plastic waste to throw them in the trash later. He crushes the plastic in his fist as he mulls over his answer.

“I… don’t think you have to worry about anything, Ryuu. I know that you’ve had the unfortunate displeasure to have to deal with bullies and other idiots alike in your life, but that doesn’t mean that you’re ‘damaged’ or whatever shit you were calling yourself before.”

Tanaka frowns at him, unconvinced.

“Don’t pout like that. You know that I’m right. In the end you didn’t do any- well, you didn’t do much wrong. For as far as you had a choice, I mean. Ukai told me you only joined the fight to get our kouhais away from those assholes. Was he wrong? Did any of them lie about what happened?”

“Well… no. That _is_ what happened.”

“Well? What are you still looking uneasy for, then?” Chikara questions sharply. “You did what you could, didn’t you? Don’t see why the rest of it really matters.”

“But I _wanted_ to-”

“It doesn’t matter what you _wanted,_ ” Chikara hisses fiercely, “what matters is what you _did._ ”

Tanaka blinks, slightly taken aback but looking pleased at the same time.

“I know you went through some tough shit before, but trauma doesn’t necessarily weaken you.”

“Not that that means it strengthens you either,” he adds, oblivious to Tanaka’s mounting confusion.

“I have… no clue what you are talking about.”

“Listen… Tanaka… You’re awesome.” He gives Ryuu a second to process this, but since the ace only starts looking more confused as the seconds go by, Chikara decides to go on before he gets bombarded with questions he’s unwilling to answer right now.

“You are. You’re great. But that’s not because of the bullying. It’s not the trauma itself that makes you stronger or kind, empathetic-, whatever… It’s how you handle those issues that makes you a great person. Even when you’re mad, I’ve never seen you treat anyone the way some people have treated you in the past.

“Of _course_ not,” Tanaka spits out, insulted by the thought itself. “I’d never-!”

“Well then that’s all that matters, right? You should give yourself a little more credit, once in a while. It’s not because you went through some… things that your character is suddenly ‘tainted’ somehow. I’ve known you for years at this point, and I’ve never seen you be anything but a loyal friend, a generally nice guy and a great senpai for the team. Someone they can look up to.”

“-well, sometimes, that is.” He grins. “When you’re not being an idiot with Yuu. You didn’t think the only reason they like you is because you’re the ace, right?”

Tanaka is staring at Chikara, an intense but indecipherable look in his light grey eyes. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out, so he closes it again, still staring with that same focused look on his face.

Ennoshita lifts his eyebrow, unimpressed. “Yes…?”

Ryuu shakes his head a little, wonder seeping out of every syllable as he says: “How can you even… say that shit? With a straight face, no less.”

Chikara laughs. “D’you think I could be friends with all of you if I got embarrassed by small stuff like _that?_ It’d be waaaay more weird if I didn’t say that I like your character. Obviously I do? Since, you know, we’re friends and all? I mean, not that I’d randomly say any of those things to the others. Of course I like them, but I’m not insane? Noya would tease me for _ages_ – the cost just isn’t worth it? But that doesn’t diminish the fact that I mean it, though. And you just… I thought it was a good time to be honest, ’s all.”

In all honesty, it’s taking a lot of effort to look as unaffected as he’s trying to achieve. He wonders if Tanaka is staring the way he does because he can hear the way Chikara’s blood is rushing in his ears.

It’s like Ryuu can sense Chikara’s unease, because he drops the intense focus, grinning wide as he slaps Chikara on the back in thanks.

Ennoshita tries not to wheeze as he throws the key of the storage room at Ryuunosuke’s face, ordering him to put away the first-aid kit as he goes to wait by the door.

He’s in enough of a good mood that he lets Tanaka wrap an arm around his neck as they walk back to the school gates, his curses a lot milder than usual as he tries to stop his friend from all but dragging him along by his neck in his enthusiasm. Tanaka has always had the tendency to be more physically affectionate whenever he gets emotional.

The thought that, at the very least, he’s saved from Narita and Kinoshita’s sniggering in the background this time, is what eventually gets him to relax in Tanaka’s hold, wrapping his own arm around Ryuu’s broad shoulders as they stumble towards the exit. His small grin broadens slowly at the hiccups of laughter randomly escaping Tanaka’s lips without rhyme or reason. For once, Chikara doesn’t care about the weird looks they get from the lingering school personnel. He just throws back his head and laughs at the sky, invincible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes for chapter 5:  
> I’m aware that police/adults don’t always react in a positive manner to victims of sexual intimidation – but I wrote what I thought was the most realistic for Ennoshita’s character – and I can’t immediately see him tell the other to just beat the shit out of those assholes, even if they did deserve it
> 
> I hope you all have an amazing weekend ahead of you! The last chapter of this story will be posted next monday and I can't wait to see what you all think ^^  
> I send you a big hug - or head pat - or awkward wave, depending on which you prefer. ❤


	6. We go together  better than birds of a feather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“What the fuck are you_ thinking? _Don’t_ say _shit like that about yourself? It’s not true at all! I don’t-… You’re…” He falls silent, both of them staring at each other. Ennoshita’s gaze slides from the way Ryuu’s chest rises in quick, agitated breaths, to his face – the tension clear in his brows and the corner of his lips. His eyes seem to dance all over Chikara’s face – searching for something, hesitant._
> 
>  _Ennoshita can almost_ hear _the puzzle pieces falling into place._
> 
>  _‘_ Oh.’ _He thinks._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To my American readers: 30° Celsius = 86° Farenheit :p
> 
> I planned out my fic so I'd be able to post the last chapter on the 24th of august, since that's the birthday of the BEST BETA EVEEEEER!! Happy birthday my dearest Annemoon! I love you a lot and I hope you enjoyed your day, even if the circumstances weren't what we'd have prefered. Please go check out her work at [AnneLilian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnneLilian/pseuds/AnneLilian)!
> 
> _**“We go together - better than birds of a feather, you and me”** _

“Hurry up, Chikara!”

Ennoshita lets out a little ‘oof’ as the helmet Tanaka just tossed him hits him square in the chest, causing him to drop his bag.

“Would it hurt _not_ throwing objects at my face the second you see me?” he huffs, slightly annoyed.

Tanaka’s smile turns guilty, but only a little – his excitement for their trip seemingly too big to be dragged down by something as insignificant as almost giving one of your best friends a black eye.

“Have fun, boys.”

“Thanks, Ennoshita-san!”

Chikara turns and fixates his mother with wide eyes – silently trying to force her back inside, where she can’t make any embarrassing remarks. Her soft smile quirks up into the tiniest of grins, invisible to Tanaka as she looks up at her son with a gaze that is creepily _knowing._

She gives a soft push against his stomach. “Go on now, Chikara, don’t keep the boy waiting.”

He ducks to grab his bag, slinging it over his shoulder as he clutches the helmet under his left arm. He bends his head to give his mother a kiss to the cheek, shooting her a last distrustful glace as he walks down to where Ryuu stands waiting.

Tanaka greets him with a grin that beams just as bright as the polished metal of his motorcycle. It’s a second-hand piece, largely sponsored by his sister after he’d aced the tests for his licence. She had called it ‘a late birthday present’, and Ennoshita quietly resents and respects her for it at the same time. No gift he could give Tanaka in the future will ever be able to match this one. Tanaka loves his bike with a passion only rivalled by his adoration for volleyball.

Ennoshita’s mother stands watching as they secure the bag on one of the tiny luggage carriers at the back of the bike, her laughter at Chikara’s attempt to climb up on the little space behind the driver’s seat ringing through the air. He’s almost glad for the distraction of her snorts as Tanaka leans in close to fix the clasps securing Chikara’s helmet. At least this way no one suspects why he’s _really_ blushing. Well. No one aside from his mother, maybe.

As if on cue, she chooses that exact moment to shout: “I’d like it if you brought back my son to me alive, Tanaka-kun. Please take care of him!”

“I sure will, Ennoshita-san! I’ll make sure he stays safe, and-”

“Shut the fuck up and lets _go,_ ” Chikara hisses. His cheeks burn like they’re on fire as he leans back so Tanaka can climb on the bike in front of him. He desperately wants to bury his face into Ryuu’s strong back. It seems like the perfect way to hide his embarrassment from everyone, _including_ himself, but he is unable to do just that because of the helmet shielding his face.

“Hold on tight, Chika!” Tanaka’s muffled voice sounds in front of him as Ryuu starts up the engine.

Chikara obeys, grasping Tanaka’s waist more tightly as the motorcycle vibrates to life underneath their thighs. He’s suddenly overwhelmed by a flurry of butterflies in his stomach as Tanaka slightly revs the engine, not all of them caused by the boy currently pressed into his chest. He wonders, for the 30th time that day, if this really is as good of an idea as Tanaka made it sound.

 _‘It’s not a good idea to let yourself think that this feels strongly like a-.’_ He pushes the thought to the back of his mind, just like all the other times he stopped to consider this particular decision the last two weeks – focussing on Tanaka’s delighted laugh instead, as the bike starts to move forward. The both of them yell back a last goodbye to Ennoshita’s mother, Chikara too nervous to wave, even with the slow speed at which they’re moving away from the curb.

The engine roars, and they’re _off._

*

It turns out that driving for about two hours on a black motorcycle was much harder than Ennoshita had estimated. His legs feel like they belong to an entirely different person when he finally _stumbles_ more than climbs off of the bike. He’s happy he agreed with Tanaka’s plea to leave earlier in the morning instead of around noon – he doesn’t want to imagine how it would have felt to be stuck in traffic underneath the burning midday sun while on that bike. To be fair; he probably could have helped himself by relaxing a little instead of clenching his thighs during the whole ride in an effort to hold on to the bike.

He hobbles to the side awkwardly as Tanaka opens their carrier bags and takes out the food and their rucksacks. He has to show Chikara several times how to remove the clasps to take off his helmet before the captain finally succeeds, taking the helmet Ennoshita offers him proudly with a grin.

Chikara ignores his whining thighs to pick up two of the bags Ryuu set to the side earlier, while Tanaka starts shoving the helmets into the now empty compartments, locking them up when he’s done. It takes them a couple of minutes to collect their stuff and check if the motorcycle is secured safely, but after that it’s just a six-minute walk to get where they need to be.

Tanaka lets out a content groan, mirrored on his right by Ennoshita’s happy sigh as he lets his toes sink into the warm sand, wriggling them a little until he’s buried up to his ankles.

“’m glad we didn’t arrive in the afternoon. I probably would’ve burned the skin off my feet if I just stepped out on the beach like this.”

Chikara hums his agreement, too busy taking deep breaths of the clean sea air to answer aloud. The sound of lapping waves rushing in the distance almost puts him in some sort of trance when he closes his eyes, focused entirely on the nature surrounding them.

Chikara can’t hold in his yell when he opens his eyes and sees Tanaka’s inquisitive stare only centimetres from his own. He tries to step back, and, forgetting that he buried himself up to his ankles, flails spectacularly as he falls backwards and crashes into the sand.

Tanaka stares at him, stunned for a second before bursting out into guffaws. “You sure you don’t want to sit a little closer to the sea, Chika?”

Chikara glares up at his friend as he pulls his feet from their sandy confinement and crawls back upright again. He can feel grains of sand fall from his hair and slip underneath the neck of his shirt. It’s extremely uncomfortable.

“You _ass!_ ” He curses, with feeling. “What the hell were you _doing?_ ”

“I was just going to ask if you wanted to choose where we’ll go sit?”

“Yeah, and you needed to do that standing nose to nose?”

“Obviously.”

Ennoshita gives up, lacking the energy to try to explain the gaps in Tanaka’s logic when the man himself doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest.

Tanaka ends up carrying all the bags in an effort to get Ennoshita to stop grumbling, which ends up working like a charm. He stands to the side when they find a good spot to lay down, looking like a human coat-hanger with all their baggage hanging off of him as he patiently waits while Ennoshita takes out some of the towels.

It seems like Tanaka prepared anything Chikara could have possibly thought of. He watches the ace open one of the bags and pull out; a parasol, some books, a small board game, sunscreen, a beach volleyball, …

“Do you plan on staying here, or?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you going to live here from now on, or what?” Chikara asks, his laughter seeping through his question as he stares at all the things Tanaka keeps pulling from his bags.

Tanaka falters, clearly second-guessing his decision to bring ‘everything that wasn’t welded to the floor of his bedroom’ with them. “I… wanted to make sure you wouldn’t get bored?” he tries, a little uncertain.

“You-” Chikara’s already droopy eyes close even further at the unexpected wave of fondness that washes over him. “We’re friends, you idiot? I came here with _you_ – _you’re_ supposed to be the entertainment. Not that I don’t appreciate all this – it’s nice.”

“Ah, well… Can’t be too sure, I guess.”

Ennoshita huffs a breath of laughter as Tanaka seems to decide against pulling out all the other things he took with them, turning towards the cooler that’s holding their food instead.

A shift in movement reminds Chikara of all the sand currently gathered underneath his shirt, grinding against his skin ever since his earlier fall in the dunes. He uses the time Ryuu is taking out their lunch to rid himself of his shirt and pull a bottle of sunscreen from his own bag. He’d use Ryuunosuke’s, but Ennoshita is the type of guy who turns red more than tanned, sadly enough, so he needs a different brand.

He lets his head fall back when he starts putting some protection on his collarbones and throat. He’s almost done rubbing the sunscreen into the skin of his upper throat and chin when Tanaka suddenly stutters to a halt in the middle of his sentence. Chikara moves his head forward from where he’d let it hang back, curious to see what made him stop.

“What?” he asks, when he spots nothing out of the ordinary. He looks down quickly when he notices Tanaka staring unblinkingly at his chest, a sudden sense of foreboding reminding him that if he accidentally left some sunscreen on his nipples, or something equally as embarrassing, this moment may turn into the bud of some very stupid jokes in the near future.

“What?” he asks again, self-conscious.

Tanaka seems to come back to his senses, blinking quickly a couple of times before asking: “you want some help or?”

“Sure, thanks. What made you look like-?”

“Ah, it’s nothing,” Ryuu says smoothly, waving his hand through the air. “Didn’t know we were taking off our clothes this soon.

“It’s 30°C?” Ennoshita frowns, “and the inside of my shirt held about as much sand as the Sahara desert. I’m actually kind of surprised you’re still wearing yours, you know, with your track record during practice.”

“I guess I forgot,” Tanaka shrugs, reaching for the bottle next to Chikara’s thigh. “Come on, turn around. I’ll do your back if you do mine.”

Despite saying all this, Tanaka waits until after he put sunscreen onto his face, legs and arms before taking off his shirt – strangely modest as he rids himself of the fabric in silence. For some reason, the situation feels a lot more charged when he takes off his shirt without hollering about like an idiot.

Chikara feels like a professional poker player when he watches Ryuu undress and waits for him to turn around with a straight face, a dot of sunscreen ready in the palm of his hand. If the fact that Tanaka likes to take off his shirt so often has one advantage, other than the obvious, then it is the fact that Chikara got used to working around a half-naked Tanaka without blushing in the slightest.

He takes care of rubbing the sunscreen into Tanaka’s skin in quick and efficient sweeps, unwilling to touch his friend more than he needs to. He knows he isn’t doing any of this with ill intentions, but the fact that Tanaka doesn’t know about his crush makes him feel creepy, so he finishes the job as quickly as possible without seeming weird about it.

They have lunch straight after, which Ennoshita slightly regrets when he notices he accidentally smeared some leftover sunscreen on his food. After lunch, they wait for their food to go down before going for a swim – listening to music or just talking in the meantime. Their time spent waiting lengthens by almost an hour when Tanaka all but threatens Chikara into letting him buy them both some ice cream, arguing it was only fair since Chikara made both their lunches. 

*

Chikara is feeling stitches in his side by the time he slumps down onto his towel again. He is greeted with a smug: "beat your ass two times in a row, now", from Tanaka, who lays panting on his own towel – an opened bottle of water in his hand.

“You cheated,” Chikara says drowsily, the heat and his exhaustion catching up with him almost immediately after his head touches the fabric.

“Slander! Show me your proof, coward!”

Tanaka had been walking backwards in the direction of the water, talking to Ennoshita and laughing at him because ‘he was speechless because of Ryuu’s amazing humour’. In truth, Ennoshita had been speechless because the image of a laughing Tanaka with the backdrop of the ocean was nothing less of magnificent, which he, oddly enough, failed to mention. He had cursed his distraction for putting him off-kilter when Tanaka had used that exact moment to start ‘racing him to the sea’, gaining a head start that turned out to be insurmountable as they ran towards the waves.

Chikara reaches for the bottle of water, drinking half of it in one go in an effort to distract himself from Tanaka, who has started reapplying sunscreen after their time in the water. Parts of his skin are still glistening – the drops sparkling like diamonds as the sun reflects off of them.

“Thirsty?” Tanaka asks slyly. 

Ennoshita nearly chokes on his water in his effort to answer as fast as possible.

“Huh?” he coughs.

Tanaka’s laugh seems to echo off of the sky itself. “Thirsty?” he repeats, amusement still clearly audible in his voice. “You drank, like, ¾ of that bottle in one go.”

“Ah, yeah – I guess I am,” Chikara mumbles tiredly – exhaustion crashing over him a second time now that the rush of adrenaline starts to slow down and he is no longer choking. He must have imagined the intonation, the first time. There’s _no way_ Tanaka would’ve asked him in that tone if he had known how correct his statement was.

*

The rest of the afternoon seems to go by in a flash. One second they’re playing volleyball in the sand – which turns out to be much harder than expected – the next they’ve gone to a shop to buy some bento for dinner, and right after that they decide to chill at the shore, talking as they watch the sunset dye the sky in the prettiest of colours.

“I’m just saying – there’s no way of knowing whether or not we’re living in a computer simulation, like in the Matrix,” Tanaka says conspiratorially, his mouth quirking at Ennoshita’s easy grin.

“I… don’t… know…” Chikara says slowly. “If that’s the logic you choose to follow, then you could just as well say that everything around you is a figment of your own imagination, and it’s basically all a dream.”

It doesn’t take Tanaka long to disagree. “Nah, that doesn’t sound right. I don’t think I-… Nah.”

They’ve planted their butts onto the sand where it’s still wet, but where they won’t be reached by the water, leaning back against their bags and enjoying the way the waves tap against their toes every couple of seconds, tiny waves reaching to wet their calves at most. They’ve agreed to wait and watch the sunset until it’s gone, spending their time holding mock philosophy debates, which turned interesting rather faster than expected.

“You can’t say that?” Ennoshita argues. “There’s no difference at all with what you were saying – you wouldn’t know?”

Tanaka ignores him, avoiding his gaze by staring out over the ocean instead. He looks oddly serious. It’s a strange sight, combined with the way the water and the sunset get reflected in his eyes.

“Give _one_ argument, then, a single one?” Ennoshita pauses for barely a second, cheering when Tanaka doesn’t reply to his taunt. “ _See?!_ I _knew_ you didn’t have one, so you have to admit that my theory is _just_ as likely as-”

“I was… I was gonna say…” Tanaka starts. He sounds like he’s dreaming – his tone far off as he stares into the distance.

“Yes…?” Ennoshita says, ready to break down the next argument he gets thrown his way.

“I was going to say… that I don’t think it can be imagination. I don’t think I could’ve come up with you.”

There’s a moment of silence before Ryuunosuke looks up in surprise at the way Ennoshita breaks down laughing. “Don’t laugh at me, you jackass!”

Chikara is laughing so hard that it takes a while for him to get his words out, and even then he’s still wheezing after every couple of syllables. He tries again when he has caught his breath, hiccupping slightly when he says: “Did you pull that one from a book of one-liners? You don’t have to flatter me, Ryuu. I’m, like, the _most normal_ _guy_ of our whole team, probably.” He has to focus on his message to keep himself from dissolving into a fit of laughter again. “You want me to believe that out of _everyone-,_ that _I’m_ someone you’d have trouble coming up with? You know that that’s not realistic in the slightest-?”

“That’s _not_ true, what the fuck?”

The anger on Ryuunosuke’s face sends such a burst of shock through Chikara’s body that it almost feels like it physically hit him, stunning him momentarily as he waits for Tanaka to continue, bewildered.

“What the fuck are you _thinking?_ Don’t _say_ shit like that about yourself? It’s not true at all! I don’t-… You’re…” He falls silent, both of them staring at each other. Ennoshita’s gaze slides from the way Ryuu’s chest rises in quick, agitated breaths, to his face – the tension clear in his brows and the corner of his lips. His eyes seem to dance all over Chikara’s face – searching for something, hesitant.

Ennoshita can almost _hear_ the puzzle pieces falling into place.

 _‘Oh.’_ He thinks.

He doesn’t feel like laughing at all when he, with a lurch to his stomach, realizes that maybe, just maybe…

The sea continues to lap at their feet as Ennoshita _sees_ Tanaka for what feels like the first time. Sees the way his cheeks burn red because of his blush and the light of the sunset alike. The stronger Tanaka’s blush grows, the calmer Chikara starts to feel. Calm enough to ask: “Is this… Ryuu, is this a date?”

“How would you… react if I told you I wanted it to be one? Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

“Hypothetically… I guess _my_ hypothetical question to that answer would be why you didn’t hypothetically ask me on a date outright?”

“I _meant_ to ask, you know,” Ryuu mumbles, immediately dropping all pretences, “immediately after I came up with the idea of this trip. I knew exactly how I was gonna ask it too, but I chickened out in the end.”

“But _then_ I thought,” he says, suddenly revitalized, “that this was the far better option. ‘Cause, you know… I know we’ve been friends for a long time, but this is kinda… different. Yeah. And I wanted to show you that dates with me could be- no, _would_ be fun, and shit. No, I mean- and stuff! Anyway – I could show you that I’m not always too loud, or… and… What was I saying again?”

Before Ennoshita can do more than suck in a breath, Ryuu rants on again: “Right. About showing you a good time… I’m not always difficult? And I thought if we went on a not-date-date, then it would help? When I asked you on a date-date for real, I mean. You know, it would prove that you don’t need to break your head about it too much – that we could have it good. If you want…?”

Chikara smiles. “I was going to-”

But Ryuu seems to get into some kind of panic when he realizes he forgot to share some details about his thought process. The words come tumbling from his lips quicker and quicker as he tries to convince Chikara _still,_ after all these years of knowing each other.

“So I planned on asking you at night, when I dropped you off home. Cause I thought it was sweet, but not _too_ sweet, since I don’t know if you’re romantic at all. And… well, you didn’t really agree, earlier, but you also didn’t tell me ‘no’ yet, so I’ll take that as a good sign.” He seems to deflate a little, like the release of all these words left him empty. It looks very cute, for a bald-headed 18 year old high school student who could probably kill a man by high fiving him too hard.

“It _is_ a good sign,” Chikara says, still too emotionally whiplashed from everything that happened the last couple of minutes to form a more logical response. _‘Should he just say ‘yes’ now, or…?’_ “I guess I have one thing that I want to say before… Yes – just one, I guess. I’m… kinda thrown by the fact that you thought you needed to ‘convince me’ or something. That you felt the need to explain yourself, and ‘why’… all this would be a good idea, even when I’ve known you for as long as I do.”

He raises a finger when Ryuu starts to interrupt, determined to finish his thought before he forgets the point he was trying to make. “Do you really think that I didn’t know all of this yet? That I wouldn’t have caught on to the fact that it won’t always be easy, for us? It’s not that you’re _difficult,_ you just need… a different approach, maybe. But I don’t care about _any_ of that, Ryuu, I never have. Besides; every relationship has its difficulties. We’ll work on ours when we get there. I’m sure we’ll find a solution whenever we need one, even if our issues might be a little different from other couples. There’s no need to panic before that time comes. And even if it does come; we’ll get through it if we put the work in.”

The cost of his own mortification at his speech combined with his red cheeks is still worth it, Chikara decides, as he stares at the way Ryuu’s head has coloured a shade of red most people couldn’t even imagine. He’s starting to have some strange realizations about just how much he likes Ryuu blushing.

_‘I really could get used to this.’_

“Now did you plan on asking me anything?” Chikara asks, sounding a lot braver than he feels.

Tanaka nods, a steely look returning to his eyes as he gathers his courage. All sounds of the sea and the seagulls seem to fall away when he opens his mouth and the question _finally_ comes. “You know… Chikara, I like _everything_ about you. I really do. And I was wondering if you wanted to go on a-?”

“Yes!” Chikara squeaks, too excited and nervous to let Tanaka finish his awkward mini confession or feel embarrassed about answering too soon. “Yes! Sure!”

They both grin like idiots, everything else forgotten until a larger wave suddenly spills over the edge of their tiny sand seats – soaking their shorts immediately. They scramble back with a yell, trying to save their belongings before the tides can wash them away.

They dry their feet before pushing them into their now squeaky shoes, the material wet and uncomfortable with seawater as they start their walk back to the motorcycle, leaving thin trails of salt water across the sand as they go.

Ennoshita has to concentrate on the things he’s holding to not lose himself completely. He’s so _happy_ that he feels like he could take on the world and laugh. Like he could punch the sun and _win._ It’s almost too good to be true. He licks his lips, well – maybe there’s _one_ thing… But it might be too much to ask if… Well. He’ll be happy whatever answer he gets, it’s not like they won’t have other opportunities later.

“Hey Ryuu,” he calls, causing the ace to look back from where he was walking a couple of feet ahead. His cheeks are still red. Chikara hastens his steps, waiting until he’s right next to Tanaka before looking him in the eye and asking: “so this not-a-date-date, does it have the option of ending like some normal dates do? You know, when you drop me off at my front door and stuff? And… say goodbye?”

For a second he is worried he wasn’t clear enough – but the way Ryuu’s eyes widen, his gaze flickering down to Chikara’s lips and back up repeatedly, shows he understood the meaning perfectly fine. “W-well, if you want to? Then that’s… I- yeah, I think we could… I mean…”

“Or…” Chikara ads slyly, feeling drunk on the prospect of _finally_ being able to kiss the boy he’s been in love with for the past three years, “ _-or_ do you need to give me a speech, first? Or a slide show, on why it would be a good idea? To really get the point across, you know? In case I can’t form my own opinion.”

He grins so wide he is almost unable to see Ryuu’s deadpan expression. “You’re going to tease me about this forever, won’t you?”

“Perhaps. Maybe so… Okay fine, yes – absolutely. But you chose this, remember?” he laughs, using his bag-laden hands to motion around the length of his own body. “Subscriptions can’t be cancelled, I’m afraid. ‘m sorry to say you’ll be stuck with me forever.”

“Good thing I like it, then, you brat,” Tanaka sneers, stepping from the beach onto the tiles of the sidewalk, the streetlamps around them causing scattered specs of gold to dance in his eyes as he glances at Chikara. “Guess that means you’re stuck with me too, since I can’t ‘unsubscribe’ and all. How d’you like _that?_ Hah!”

“I’ll take that as a promise, then,” Chikara breathes quietly.

Tanaka smiles, his honest joy filling Ennoshita with bliss in turn, only for it to amplify when Ryuu slowly laces their pinkies together.

“Good. It is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey heeeeeey! :D
> 
> Thank you for joining me through the process of posting another one of my works ^^  
> I've enjoyed writing this work a lot and I can only hope that it has brought some of you new insights (- and even if it didn't, I hope you could simply enjoy the story in itself!) ^^
> 
> Thank you SO much to all the people who commented on my work! It honestly fills me with so much joy it's hard to describe!  
> I don't really care if you comment while I'm still posting the fic or months afterwards, I can promisse that I read every single comment with the utmost interest! ^^
> 
> I'm currently working on my next fic, so please subscribe to my account if you want to be notified of my future works as well :)  
> I wish you all the best of weeks! Don't forget to drink enough water, be kind to the people around you and please wear your seatbelt!
> 
> The biggest of hugs/headpats/whatever you prefer - Asimi

**Author's Note:**

> Talk Tendou to me! – You can do so in the comments or on [my main Twitter](https://twitter.com/AsimiShadowborn), [my art Twitter](https://twitter.com/Adrawrables), [my main Tumblr](http://riseoftheplanetofthesnapes.tumblr.com/) & [my art Tumblr](https://adrawrables.tumblr.com/)  
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